Department of Radiology and the Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine.
Email: kap45@cam.ac.uk

Profile

Katie’s research interests lie in the use of neuropsychological and neuroimaging methods for the diagnosis and evaluation of neurodegenerative and neurological conditions. Katie graduated with an MA (Hons) degree in Psychology from the University of Dundee in 2012. She then completed a PhD in Medical Sciences (Psychiatry) at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Professor Barbara Sahakian and Professor John Pickard. Her PhD research aimed to define cognitive processes affected by normal pressure hydrocephalus and the effect of shunt surgery on cognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms.Since completing her PhD in 2017, Katie has been working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Cambridge Centre for Frontotemporal Dementia under the supervision of Professor James Rowe and Professor Karalyn Patterson on a project to develop a novel clinical test (the Mini Linguistic State Examination [MLSE]) for classifying primary progressive aphasia. As part of this research, Katie also used the MLSE to characterise language changes caused by movement disorders (e.g. progressive supranuclear palsy and corticobasal syndrome) and investigated neural correlates of language impairment in dementia.

Current Research

Katie is currently working between the Departments of Radiology and Clinical Neurosciences on projects employing neuropsychological and neuroimaging methods in neurodegenerative populations. She joins Dr Tomasz Matys’ research group as a Research Associate for a study to investigate new MRI methods for dementia imaging.

Selected publications

1. Patel, N., Peterson, K.A., Ingram, R., Storey, I., Cappa, S.F., Catricala, E., Patterson, K.E., Lambon Ralph, M.A., Rowe, J.B., & Garrard, P. The Mini Linguistic State Examination (MLSE): a brief but accurate assessment tool for classifying Primary Progressive Aphasias. (preprint: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.02.20119974v1)
2. Peterson, K.A., Patterson, K., & Rowe, J. B. (2019). Language impairment in progressive supranuclear palsy and corticobasal syndrome. Journal of Neurology, 1-14. doi: 10.1007/s00415-019-09463-1
3. Peterson, K.A., Mole, T.B., Keong, N.C.H., DeVito, E.E., Savulich, G., Pickard, J.D., & Sahakian, B.J. (2019). Structural correlates of cognitive impairment in normal pressure hydrocephalus. Acta Neurologica Scandinavica, 139(3), 305-312. doi: 10.1111/ane.13052
4. Peterson, K.A., Savulich, G., Jackson, D., Killikelly, C., Pickard, J.D., & Sahakian, B.J. (2016). The effect of shunt surgery on neuropsychological performance in normal pressure hydrocephalus: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Neurology, 263(8), 1669-1677. doi:10.1007/s00415-016-8097-0
5. Peterson, K.A., Housden, C.R., Killikelly, C., DeVito, E.E., Keong, N.C., Savulich, G., Czosnyka, Z., Pickard, J.D., & Sahakian, B.J. (2016). Apathy, ventriculomegaly and neurocognitive improvement following shunt surgery in normal pressure hydrocephalus. British Journal of Neurosurgery, 30(1), 38-42. doi:10.3109/02688697.2015.1029429