Marta Garo-Pascual

Dr Marta Garo-Pascual is a neuroscientist interested in exploring human healthy ageing. The goal of her research is to enhance the quality of life for the ageing population—not just extending lifespan, but maintaining good health and independence throughout life.

Dr Marta Garo-Pascual carries out this purpose from various approaches such as the study of brain structure by applying structural neuroimaging techniques, the study of epidemiological factors that allow analysis of lifestyle and environmental contributions and the study of biological markers such as blood biomarkers, telomere length or genetic factors.

Her work on the superagers, older people with an episodic memory like that of a person 30 years younger, has shed light on the mechanisms of brain ageing in this population as well as the lifestyle factors associated with this phenotype.

Dr Marta Garo Pascual graduated in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Barcelona (Spain) in 2017 and continued her studies with a master’s degree in Neuroscience at the Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain), where she also obtained her PhD in Neuroscience in 2024. For the completion of her doctoral project, she was awarded the Fundación Reina Sofía-Mapfre Fellowship in 2019.

She is currently doing postdoctoral research at Inselspital – Universitätsspital Bern (Switzerland) and previously also collaborated with the Karolinska Institute (Sweden) and the Universitätsklinikum Jena (Germany).

Episodic memory—the ability to recall personal life experiences—is one of the cognitive abilities most susceptible to age-related decline. While neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s Disease are often linked to a significant deterioration in episodic memory, some reduction in episodic memory abilities is also expected in healthy aging. However, some individuals seem to resist this age-related decline. These “superagers” are people over 80 years old whose episodic memory performs as well as that of healthy adults 30 years younger.

The study of superagers is important because it has the potential to yield insights into the mechanisms that protect against age-related memory loss and dementia. Given that the leading cause of dementia on a global scale is Alzheimer’s Disease, which frequently manifests as a primary deterioration in episodic memory, there is an urgent need to identify strategies to combat memory loss.

The presentation will provide a comprehensive overview of the structural brain signature of this exceptional ageing population, offering a cross-sectional and longitudinal perspective on grey and white matter atrophy. This will facilitate a more profound understanding of the brain ageing mechanisms of superagers. Furthermore, the demographic, lifestyle and clinical factors that define superagers will provide novel insights into the preservation of episodic memory function into the ninth decade.