Unravelling the brain-body interface of chronic fatigue in people with multimorbidity
Supervisors:
Professor Neil Basu, School of Infection & Immunity (University of Glasgow)
Professor Jonathan Cavanagh, School of Infection & Immunity (University of Glasgow)
Professor Monika Harvey, School of Psychology & Neuroscience (University of Glasgow)
Summary:
This fellowship seeks to train a future leader of academic health care with a unique interdisciplinary skill set which will conjoin cutting edge proficiencies in the analysis of complex, imaging based, data alongside the ability to successfully deliver experimental medicine studies.
The focus of the PhD will be to better understand mechanisms which subserve the unmet need of fatigue, a major problem associated with poor quality of life, work disability and premature mortality. This symptom is a patient priority across the chronic disease spectrum and so the topic will be of high relevance to candidates from multiple specialities and disciplines.
Specifically, the largest sets of advanced MRI brain, clinical and inflammation marker data will be employed to discover neurobiological signatures of fatigue which will then be related to measures of peripheral inflammation. Those signatures which are most commonly identified across different chronic diseases will be prioritised and specifically tested in a newly developed MRI study in a fatigued clinical population of greatest relevance to the health care professional’s clinical interests.
Ultimately, it is expected that the project will provide the basis for much required therapeutics which will benefit people with multimorbidity.
The successful candidate will join a vibrant interdisciplinary group of clinicians, PhD students, research nurses, neuroscientists, computational analysis and immunologists (https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/infectionimmunity/staff/neilbasu/neuroinflammatoryphenotypesresearchgroup/)