Hypertension (elevated arterial blood pressure) is a medical condition affecting one in five adults in Wales. Remarkably, even prior to showing clinical evidence of cerebrovascular damage, hypertensive individuals develop mild cognitive functional deficits affecting working memory and attention. The objectives of this project are to (a) provide new evidence for aberrant cognitive processing (working memory and attention) in newly-diagnosed and unmedicated hypertensives through behavioural data and electroencephalographic signals (EEG), (b) improve our understanding of the pathophysiology of hypertension by determining the extent to which aberrant cognitive processing due to hypertension are moderated by the phase of the cardiac cycle wherein target stimuli are presented (cardiac cycle effect), and (c) identify a small portion of the data allowing to predict the severity of cognitive decline without the need for patients to undergo long testing sessions and operators to perform complex EEG signal processing.

Funding awarded through the Bangor University Innovation and Impact Award (Research Wales Innovation Funding). Value = £6947