Anna Marseglia

Anna Marseglia

Assistant Professor
Visiting address: Blickagången 16, 14152 Huddinge
Postal address: H1 Neurobiologi, vårdvetenskap och samhälle, H1 Klinisk geriatrik Westman, 171 77 Stockholm
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About me

  • I am an Assistant Professor at Karolinska Institutet within the NVS Department, Division of Clinical Geriatrics. She is a Neuropsychologist and holds a PhD in aging epidemiology. My reserach has a multidisciplinary focus on cognitive disorders arising from cerebrovascular disorders, particularly cerebral small vessel disease. 

    My team welcomes applications for research internships, exchanges, and student thesis on an ongoing basis. If you are interested, please reach out via email.

    EDUCATION
    2018, Ph.D. in medical science - aging epidemiology, Aging Research Center (ARC), NVS, KI. Thesis “The impact of diabetes on cognitive aging and dementia”.
    2012-present, Licensed psychologist - Register of Psychologists of Puglia, Italy (No. 4473).
    2011, Residency training in neuropsychology, Department of Neurology, Padua University Hospital, Italy
    2009, M.Sc. in Psychology (clinical psychology), Padua University, Italy.

    RESEARCH APPOINTMENTS

    2025-present, Affiliated Researcher, Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg.

    2024-present, Research Collaborator, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA.

    2024-present, Assistant Professor, Division of Clinical Geriatrics, NVS, KI.


    POSTDOCTORAL ASSIGNMENTS 
    2020-2024, Postdoctoral researcher, Division of Clinical Geriatrics, NVS, KI.
    2019-2020, Postdoctoral researcher, ARC, NVS.

    OTHER PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS

    2026-present, Deputy Section Editor at Alzheimer’s & Dementia 

    2025-present, Co-chair of the International Society of Vascular Behavioural and Cognitive Disorders (VasCog)

    2024-2025, Associate Editor for Aging Clinical and Experimental Research. 

    2018-2019, Postdoctoral research assistent (doktorandanställning), ARC, NVS, KI. 
    2010-2013, Researcher, Italian Research Council, Institute of Neuroscience, Aging branch, Padua (Italy).

Research

  • In her work, Anna Marseglia harnesses multi-dimensional data from diverse population- and clinical-based cohorts including but not limited to the Gothenburg H70-85 Birth Cohort Studies, the UK Biobank, the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging, the Betula Project, and the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center Cohorts. These datasets are instrumental in advancing projects within her areas of interest outlined below.

    1) Mechanisms of Vascular Cognitive Impairment and Dementia (VCID).

    These projects aim to deepen our understanding of how vascular risk factors and disorders affect cognitive and brain health. We focus on identifying neuroimaging and molecular biomarkers of inflammation, insulin resistance, and lipid dysregulation that contribute to small vessel disease and clinical transitions across the VCID spectrum, while also exploring intersections with Alzheimer's disease co-pathology.


    2) Key determinants of resilience mechanisms in aging. 
    These projects aim to uncover how life exposures from early to late life (e.g., education, work complexity, social health) influence cognition and biological markers of resilience. Brain maintenance and cognitive resilience are assessed by the gap between biological 'brain age' and chronological age. We also investigate how life exposures, degenerative and cerebrovascular diseases, and processes like inflammation interact to shape brain resilience and cognitive outcomes.

    3) Sex-related differences in VCID and resilience. 
    These projects explore the impact of sex differences on cognitive disorders and resilience, focusing on biological factors like hormones, and socio-cultural determinants. They aim to determine how these factors drive cognitive health disparities between sexes in VCID and identify potential compensatory pathways.

    All projects involve collaborations with national and internation experts across diverse aging research fields. Anna Marseglia's active roles in organizations like VasCog (International Society of Vascular Behavioral and Cognitive Disorders), ISTAART (Alzheimer's Association), and the SAIN-SWEAH Alumni Interdisciplinary Network further facilitate collaborations.


    RESEARCH GRANTS
    Anna Marseglia's reserach is funded by the Swedish Research Council (VR starting grant), Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (FORTE), Center for Innovative Medicine (CIMED), Demensfonden, Alzheimerfonden, Karolinska Institutet’s Research Foundation Grant, Strategic Research Area Neuroscience (StratNeuro), David och Astrid Hageléns Stiftelsen, the Collaboratory on Research Definitions for Cognitive Reserve and Resilience, Loo och Hans Ostermans stiftelse, Foundation for Geriatric Diseases at Karolinska Institute, Stiftelsen för Gamla Tjänarinnor, and Kvinnor och Hälsa Stiftelsen.


    LEADERSHIP AND COLLABORATIONS
    Anna Marseglia has an extensive network of active collaborations in Sweden and internationally (e.g. Umeå University, Gothenburg University, USA-Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center and Mayo Clinic Rochester, Australia-University of New South Wales, Netherlands-Radboud University Medical Center and Erasmus MC Rotterdam, UK-University College London). She co-led a work package within the JPND’s SHARED consortium and serves as principal investigator for UK-Biobank projects (KI-Dnr: 4-352/2023), coordinator of the H70-88 MRI cohorts (KI side), and co-led the VasCog Early Career Investigator group with Hilde van den Brink. She regularly organizes seminars and workshops within NVS and at the Center for Alzheimer Research at KI, and StratNeuro. 


    COMMISSIONS OF TRUST
    (1) Member of Executive Committee, VasCog Society (2018-ongoing)
    (2) Member of Organizing Committee, KI South Distinguished Lecture Series (2023-ongoing)

    (3) Chair Postdoc member, NVS Institutionsråd (2020-2024)

    (4) Member of the Alzheimer’s Association’s ISTAART PIAs: Vascular, Sex and Gender, Reserve and Resilience, Design and data analytics, Nutrition metabolism (2018-ongoing).

Teaching

  • Anna Marseglia actively contributes to a variety of teaching activities including lectures, seminars, workshops, hands-on at both master's and doctoral levels.

    She regularly supervises master's and PhD students as well as guest researchers from diverse backgrounds such as medicine, psychology, public health and epidemiology, radiology, and neuroscience. Moreover, She organizes seminars and workshops, whether they are topic-specific or focused on methodologies, within our Division and the Center for Alzheimer Research (CAR), which acts as a hub for Swedish dementia researchers. If you have any ideas for potential events or workshops, please feel free to reach out.

Articles

All other publications

Grants

  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2026 - 31 December 2029
    Vascular Cognitive Impairment (VCI) due to cerebrovascular disease—dementia leading cause—is underdiagnosed and poorly understood due to lack of diagnostic criteria and fragmented mechanistic insights. I will uncover health behaviours and biological processes linking inflammation, glucose and lipid metabolism to small vessel disease (SVD) and VCI. My team will: Characterize the natural history of VCI, implementing new diagnostic criteria to identify key transition driversDefine mechanistic pathways linking inflammation and metabolism to SVD and VCI (biosignatures)Determine how a multimodal lifestyle intervention preserves cognition (resilience) despite SVD by modifying transition drivers, biosignatures, or bothBy the project’s end, I will identify biomarkers for early VCI detection and actionable targets for tailored interventions. This will refine risk assessment tools and inform clinical trials and healthcare strategies for effective, person-cantered VCI prevention.We will integrate neuroimaging, clinical, sociobehavioral, and proteomic data—alongside an AI-based resilience measure, the Brain Age Gap—from the H70 and UK Biobank cohorts and the FINGER trial. Using modern statistical methods (eg mixed-effect, multi-state models, random forests), we will achieve our goal within 4 yrs (Yr-1 Aim1
    Yr-2 Aim2
    Yr-3&4 Aim3). My multidisciplinary team (epidemiology, neuroimaging, geriatrics, statistics) and established resources at NVS,KI provide a strong foundation for success.
  • Swedish Research Council for Health Working Life and Welfare
    1 January 2025 - 31 December 2027
    Research problem and specific questions Dementia poses a major public health challenge with no cure, underscoring the need for prevention by tackling risk/protective factors like social health (SH
    the ability to engage meaningfully, maintain supportive relationships, and feel belonging within one´s community). Yet, studies often lacked a comprehensive SH framework bridging social and biological dimensions in linking SH and cognitive health and overlooked sex differences. Our project goal is to determine how SH influences cognition leveraging resilience mechanisms across the lifespan, considering factors related to women´s health and sociocultural aspects. This goal will be achieved through 3 research lines (RL) built on a novel conceptual framework from the European SHARED consortium, supported by FORTE. RL1 will investigate the impact of SH, from mid- to late-life, on cognition before dementia manifests, the role of multimorbid disorders and stress. RL2 will investigate how SH contributes to preserving brain integrity (brain maintenance, BM) and/or cognition amid neuropathological changes (cognitive reserve, CR). RL3 will investigate the role of sex differences in the SH-resilience relationship, focusing on sex-specific biological (e.g., hormones-related) and socio-cultural determinants.Data and method We will integrate longitudinal sociobehavioural data with clinical, brain imaging, and women’s health data from the Swedish Betula project (n=4,425, 53% women
    age 25-95 yrs
    25-yr follow-up). We will validate our results externally using the UK Biobank (n=~500,000, 54% women
    age 40-69 yrs
    10-yr follow-up). We will generate biological measures of BM and CR using our in-house artificial intelligence algorithm enable to predict the age of the brain from neuroimaging. Plan for project realisation This 3-year project will be conducted by a research team, which brings together expertise in geriatric epidemiology, psychology, medical sociology, neuroscience, and engineering. Design and methodological aspects are discussed in details in the next sections. We plan to disseminate our findings also outside the scientific community by engaging with local and national end-users. Relevance Our findings will assist clinicians/public health professionals in crafting tailored risk reduction strategies/interventions against dementia for both women and men. Targeting specific SH aspects can enhance cognition before dementia symptoms manifest, across relevant life periods.
  • Cardiometabolic Burden and Brain Health—Interactions Between Markers of Brain Pathology, Resilience, and Sex Differences
    Center for Innovative Medicine (CIMED)
    1 January 2024 - 31 December 2026
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2022 - 31 December 2024

Employments

  • Assistant Professor, Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society, Karolinska Institutet, 2024-2030
  • Postdoctoral researcher, Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society, Karolinska Institutet, 2020-2024

Degrees and Education

  • Degree Of Doctor Of Philosophy, Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society, Karolinska Institutet, 2018
  • Master's degree in Clinical Psychology, University of Padua, 2009
  • Bachelor's degree in Psychology, University of Padua, 2007

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