EU COGDEC.Twinning Project Cognitive Decline mild cognitive impairment

About

COGDEC is a project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. The specific challenge of the WIDESPREAD-03-2018: Twinning call was to enhance networking activities between the research institutions of the Widening countries and internationally-leading counterparts at EU level. Driven by the quest for excellence, research intensive institutions tend to collaborate increasingly in closed groups, producing a crowding-out effect for a large number of promising institutions. This is the challenge that also the COGDEC project is trying to address.

More about H2020/Twinning

Summary

There is no single brain imaging method appropriate for optimal development of biomarkers for mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Several methods, individually or in various combinations are used to assist in diagnosis of MCI, i.e. MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), EEG (electroencephalography), PET (positron-emission tomography) and SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography).

The coordinator of the COGDEC project, the University of Ljubljana, has MRI and EEG equipment and access to PET via collaboration with the University Medical Centre Ljubljana and the Institute of Oncology, but requires further development of its human resources, deeper integration into the European Research Area, and knowledge transfer in state of the art MRI and EEG techniques, to achieve sustainable research excellence in this field of research.

Objectives

The general objectives of the COGDEC project are:

to improve support and coordination of ageing related cognitive decline and mild cognitive impairment with brain imaging methods at the University of Ljubljana;

to raise the University of Ljubljana’s research profile as well as the research profile of its staff in MRI and EEG imaging techniques and the ability to develop multimodal biomarkers from MRI, EEG and PET data for the study of ageing associated cognitive decline and mild cognitive impairment;

to enhance and sustain networking activities between the University of Ljubljana and internationally-leading counterparts at the EU level during and after the COGDEC project.