ALF-D: Accelerated long-term forgetting – a key sign of preclinical dementia?

Subjective cognitive difficulties – often reported by older adults even when standard neuropsychological tests show no deficits – are among the very first warning signs of Alzheimer’s disease. A particularly striking form of these subtle memory problems is accelerated long-term forgetting (ALF), where:

• newly learned information is recalled normally over minutes or hours
• but retention steeply declines after days or weeks

Our Interdisciplinary Approach
In this project, we will combine cutting-edge neuroimaging, mathematical modelling, and immersive virtual reality technology to uncover the neural mechanisms underlying ALF:

1. Characterise Neural Mechanisms
   • Determine which brain networks and molecular pathways underlie accelerated forgetting
2. Define Memory Vulnerability
   • Use Virtual Reality and mathematical modelling to characterise the vulnerability of different types of memory content (e.g., spatial layouts, narratives)
3. Validate ALF as a Biomarker
   • Determine whether ALF measures can sensitively and reliably predict early Alzheimer’s pathology