• BRAIN MOT FOR THE OVER 55s KEY TO AVOIDING ALZHEIMERS - Professor Tonmoy Sharma

  Top neuroscience research centre says brain tests should be available to all - before qualifying for the bus pass

  Memory tests should be introduced for everyone over the age of 55, in a bid to identify whether they are at risk of succumbing to Alzheimer’s disease.

  According to leading psychiatrist and international expert on memory, Professor Tonmoy Sharma, the problem with Alzheimer’s is that by the time it is diagnosed it is almost too late. Damage to the brain has already been done and most of the drugs available at present simply slow down the progress of the disease for 1-2 years.

  Prof. Sharma heads the Clinical Neuroscience Research Centre (CNRC) in Dartford, which currently carries out studies on a specific type of memory loss called Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). Researchers have identified this as an alarm bell for the likely onset of Alzheimer’s disease years later

  People affected by MCI may have good thinking and reasoning skills, but their short-term memory is particularly bad. This kind of memory loss is different from that associated with normal ageing.

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• It is estimated that 18 million people the world over have dementia. The figure is set to rise to 34 million by 2025. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia. Early diagnosis of the condition and the search for better treatments is now crucial, with an ageing population and the cost of the disease to sufferers, their families and the economy.

BIOGRAPHY
Professor Tonmoy Sharma MSc MRCPsych

After qualifying as a physician in 1987 he trained at UCL and then at the Institute of Psychiatry in London where he was Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry. Before opening the independent CNRC in 2001, he headed the Section of Cognitive Psychopharmacology at the Institute of Psychiatry, London. Professor Sharma has held numerous clinical positions including Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist for the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust.

He is also currently the Medical Director of Sovereign Health plc, an organisation that specialises in Intensive Psychiatric Rehabilitation using computerised cognitive remediation techniques.

One of the leading researchers in Europe on psychosis, he has published:

• over 150 papers and book chapters in the field of psychosis and schizophrenia.
• four books in the last four years on cognition and brain imaging in schizophrenia as well as In your Right Mind (1999, Faber and Faber), with Dr Thomas Stuttaford, medical correspondent for the Times – a book about mental illness for lay people.
• A fifth book from Oxford University Press is due out next year. He is on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Schizophrenia and Brain Research, and Schizophrenia Research.

Professor Sharma is on various advisory boards governing the development of antipsychotics. He is also a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists' Changing Minds Campaign, a 5-year initiative to combat the stigma of schizophrenia.

Professor Sharma’s research work has examined the relationship between brain and behaviour using a variety of surrogate markers including cognition, startle response, eye movements and brain imaging techniques. His research team has examined the relationship between psychological changes and changes in the brain function during treatment of psychiatric disorders, especially schizophrenia.

His research group at the Institute of Psychiatry was the first to visualise the cognitive effects of second generation antipsychotics in schizophrenia using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) Thas now been expanded to cognitive enhancers in memory disorders and schizophrenia, His group was also the first to translate the animal model of schizophrenia using the startle response to a clinical setting and have demonstrated the effects of the newer antipsychotics using this model

Professor Sharma’s research team at the CNRC is currently investigating the relationship between cognition and functional outcome in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and Alzheimer's disease. He has held several peer-reviewed grants for his research from a variety of sources including the Stanley Foundation, National Lotteries Charity Board and the Wellcome Trust as well as commercial organisations.

Professor Tonmoy Sharma is Director of the Clinical Neurosciences Research Centre (CNRC) in Dartford, UK.