Dr Alex Collie PhD
Senior Clinical Scientist, CogState Ltd, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Senior Fellow, Centre for Neuroscience, The University of Melbourne, Australia.
Fellow, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia.

Dr Alex Collie is a neuroscientist specialising in the development of methods for measuring cognition (ie, thinking).  Alex has a PhD in psychology and is a scientific co-founder of CogState Ltd, a world leading computerised cognitive testing company. In this role Alex consults to many large pharmaceutical and nutraceutical companies regarding the best methods of assessing cognition in clinical research trials. Alex has published widely in the scientific and medical literature on the effects of ageing on cognitive functions including memory, attention and reaction time, and is recognised as a world expert on the early cognitive signs of dementia. Recently, Alex has begun investigating the development of cognition in healthy children.

2006 - Measuring your cognitive age.
Cognition is a dynamic construct that changes continuously as a person ages. Recent studies have demonstrated that performance on cognitive tests of memory, attention, motor function, planning and problem solving improves rapidly until 15 years of age. Cognition then remains relatively stable until middle age, when performance begins to become impaired on specific tasks. As the individual ages, a gradual decline in cognitive functions has been observed using recently developed computerised cognitive testing methods. In some cases, these changes reflect the early onset of a neurodegenerative condition such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD). This presentation will discuss methods of identifying early age-related cognitive changes and differentiating these from cognitive changes associated with AD. Results from multiple studies using the CogStateTM computerised cognitive test battery will be presented.