Valentine Ucheagwu, PhD

Valentine is interested in understanding affordable diagnostics for predicting early onset of dementia in resource poor settings. His group is presently studying blood based biomarkers as potential markers for Alzheimer's disease (AD) diagnosis in Nigeria. In future, he plans to leverage this data and to add EEG as supplement marker for AD diagnosis in Nigeria.

Personal Hero

Bruno Joseph Giordani

Words of Strength

It's all about confidence

Vision

To reduce the scale of dementia, we need to encourage research related to affordable and accessible diagnostics for early detection of dementia. This will inevitably prepare the families for the journey ahead of them.

Strategy

Valentine is studying the potential of using EEG as a non-invasive diagnostic for predicting dementia in the older adult population. He plans to augment this with his current work on blood based biomarkers in dementia.

Impact

As an Atlantic Fellow, Valentine hopes to develop EEG protocols for understanding and predicting Alzheimer's disease in Nigeria with a view to improving quality of life during aging.

Motivation

Dementia is misunderstood in Nigeria and it carries with it a huge caregiver burden and stigma. More importantly, many families are not prepared for the challenges due to late diagnosis and poor management.

Education & Experience

Valentine received his basic undergraduate training in general psychology and a master's degree in clinical psychology from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria. He further obtained a doctorate degree in counselling psychology from Ebonyi State University, Abakiliki and completed a postdoc fellowship in the neuropsychology section department of psychiatry, the University of Michigan. Presently he is a senior lecturer in psychology department Nnamdi Azikiwe University.

Ebonyi State University

Counselling Psychology

PhD

Nnamdi Azikiwe University

Clinical Psychology

Master's degree

Nnamdi Azikiwe University

Psychology

Bachelor's degree