Dr. Michael Wagner

Biography

Michael Wagner studied psychology and philosophy at the University of Munich, where he also started his professional work as a clinical neuropsychologist and researcher at the Department of Psychiatry. After receiving his PhD in 1991 he was assistant professor at the Department of Clinical Psychology in Konstanz. Since 1997 he directs the Neuropsychology and Clinical Psychology Unit at the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Bonn University Hospital. He is an associate professor of Psychology at the University of Bonn and recipient of numerous research grants from the DFG and the BMBF (German federal funding agencies), focussing on neuropsychology, pharmacology and genetics of neuropsychiatric diseases. Michael Wagner is co-director of the interdisciplinary treatment and research center for neurodegenerative diseases at the University Hospital Bonn.

Research Interest

Neurodegenerative diseases are associated with progressive cognitive and motor deficits, resulting in impairments in everyday capabilities in patients. While marked cognitive impairments are only present in the stage of dementia, mild deficits can guide an earlier diagnosis, and also aid the identification of subjects in putatively early (prodromal) disease stages. Alzheimer Disease has a preclinical duration of years, if not decades, until progressive neuronal changes give rise to functional (cognitive) changes, which can initially be compensated and may be experienced only by the affected subject, before objective neuropsychological measures allow one to detect a cognitive decline. We examine new procedures to assess e.g. associative encoding in short-and long-term memory, in order to uncover and track functional deficits in brain regions affected very early in the disease. We are particularly interested how these deficits are associated with biomarkers of the disease (e.g. CSF markers, regional brain volumes), with subjective cognitive disturbances, and with functional impairment in everyday life. Further, we want to find out, whether and which subjective cognitive changes may signal a neurodegenerative disease, whether progression of initial cognitive changes predicts the speed of further disease progression, and which determinants of cognitive decline can be identified in the prodromal disease stages (e.g. diet, exercise, reserve capacity, comorbid illness, genetic variants). In order to address these questions we interrogate data from existing longitudinal studies (e.g. from the German Competence Network Dementia), we realise comprehensive new observational studies with subjects in putatively prodromal or at-risk states (e.g. the DZNE longitudinal cognitive impairment and dementia study, DELCODE), and test the diagnostic power of novel (e.g. computerized) cognitive assessment methods in studies with selected patient groups. The identification of subjects in a prodromal or even preclinical disease stage is important because new treatments may probably only have an effect in these early stages, and refined neuropsychological methods can contribute to this risk-assessment. In addition, to prove the success (or failure) of any new treatment with regard to cognitive function, reliable and change-sensitive neuropsychological assessment is critically required, as regulatory authorities require proof of cognitive and functional effectiveness. The development and validation of improved cognitive assessments for clinical studies can thus contribute to reduce the time until new treatments become available to patients.