Dr Helena R Watts

Medical advances have ensured that we are all living for longer, but not necessarily with a commensurate quality of life unless the factors that can trigger progressive cognitive decline are addressed. My research includes Alzheimer’s disease, stroke and stem cell transplantation.  The current focus of my work is on strategies to prevent surgery-induced cognitive decline in older patients.

Neuroinflammatory responses to remote surgery are normally self-limiting, however, a subset of older patients experience progressive cognitive deterioration that can lead to dementia. This is set to rise dramatically as over 65-yr olds are predicted to become the largest consumers of surgery.  As yet there is no clear evidence to explain why these changes are more likely to be long-lasting in older people. However, alterations in the way the immune system reacts with advancing age are increasingly thought to play an important role. I am investigating links that neuroinflammatory responses to surgery may share with Alzheimer’s disease and the ability of novel therapeutics to promote beneficial neuroimmune signaling and support synaptic function.

Other aspects of critical care I have research interests in include (i) mechanisms by which spontaneous waves of spreading depolarization worsen brain injury and (ii) as cancer recurrence is still a major problem following surgery, I am researching the impact of anaesthetics on cancer cell invasiveness.

Key research areas
Neurodegeneration, cognitive decline, surgical inflammation, anaesthetics, neurocritical care, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease.