In 2006, he became the founding chair of the neuropsychiatry section at the
Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, a position he held for one year.[5][3] In 2012, he established the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing at UNSW, which focuses on
neurocognitive disorders and brain health, specifically regarding
vascular dementia.[2][3] This team includes researchers from eight universities and three research institutions.[4] He has been the
PI on a number of
longitudinal, community-based studies of brain ageing, including the Sydney Memory and Ageing Study, the Older Australian Twins Study, and the Sydney Centenarian Study (1997-2005).[13][3][14][15] The Sydney Centenarian Study "emphasised the important role of the brain's
frontoparietal network in relation to the adaptability of a person's cognitive abilities to ageing and disease, known as
cognitive reserve."[14] He is a collaborator of the Australian PATH Through Life Study, leading the normative
brain ageing study since its start.[16] He also leads three international networks: the International Centenarian Consortium - Dementia (ICC-Dementia), which began in 2012; the Cohort Studies of Memory in an International Consortium (COSMIC), which began in 2017; and the Stroke and Cognititon Consortium (STROKOG), which began expanding in 2022.[3][17][18][19]
His involvement in so many research collectives has allowed him to take a leading role in the development and improvement of training within neuropsychiatry, including the core curriculum.[5][2][3][9] He was one of two Australians who contributed to the diagnosis of dementia for the
DSM-5 and led an international team to develop the diagnosis for dementia for the International Society of Vascular Behavioural and Cognitive Disorders.[20][2] Sachdev has identified new genetic markers of
VCD and
Alzheimer's, and has identified
homocysteine and impaired
fasting glucose as risk factors for
brain atrophy.[20][2] He has also contributed to the field of epilepsy research as a member of the Task Force of the
International League Against Epilepsy's Neuropsychobiology Commission.[5] He was invited by the
World Health Organization to lead a research blueprint to "help make dementia research an international priority" and, in 2022, the
Australian National Health and Medicine Research Council provided him with funding to establish a research center focused solely on vascular contributions to dementia.[2] According to former UNSW Vice-Chancellor
Ian Jacobs, who nominated Sachdev for the Ryman Award, he has also "championed the inclusion of diversity in dementia research."[2]
Additionally, he was a medical advisor and founding executive committee member of the
Tourette Syndrome Association starting in 1989; was on the Scientific Steering Committee of the
Garvan Institute's Neuroscience Institute of Schizophrenia and Allied Disorders (1996-1998); sat on the
Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists' Committee on Psychotropic Drugs and Other Physical Treatments (1996-1998); was a founding member (1998), president (2004-2006), executive member (2011), assistant secretary, and treasurer of the International Neuropsychiatric Association;[5][8][21][3][2] and served as vice-president of the Indo-Australasian Psychiatry Association (2005-2006).[5]
2022 - Ryman Prize "for his unique contribution to the understanding of ageing" and prevention and early diagnosis of dementia.[6][2]
Personal life
Sachdev is married to psychiatrist Dr. Jagdeep Sachdev.[24][25]
Selected publications
As of 2022, Sachdev had more than 1,100 peer reviewed journal articles, seven books (including The Yipping Tiger), three edited books, and 71 book chapters to his name. He has published in journals including Nature, Science, Molecular Psychiatry, Lancet Neurology, and the British Medical Journal. In 2017, he published a book of poems called A migrant's musings and other offerings to an adopted land.[2][3][10][26]
1983: "A repertory grid comparison of endogenous and neurotic depressions." With H.M. Chawla et al.Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 25: 46-51.
1994: "Research diagnostic criteria for drug-induced akathisia: conceptualisation, rationale, and proposal." Psychopharmacology, 114: 181-186.
doi:
10.1007/BF02245462
2008: "Hippocampal volume is positively associated with behavioural inhibition (BIS) in a large community-based sample of mid-life adults: the PATH through life study." With N. Cherbuin et al. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 3: 262-269.
doi:
10.1093/scan/nsn018
2009: "White matter hyperintensities in the forties: Their prevalence and topography in an epidemiological sample aged 44–48." With W. Wen et al. NeuroImage, 47: S80.
doi:
10.1016/s1053-8119(09)70557-9
2011: "Impact of Load-Related Neural Processes on Feature Binding in Visuospatial Working Memory." With N.A. Kochan et al. PLoS ONE, 6: e23960.
doi:
10.1371/journal.pone.0023960
2017: "Incidental findings on cerebral MRI in twins: the Older Australian Twins Study." With R. Koncz et al. Brain Imaging and Behavior, 12: 860-869.
doi:
10.1007/s11682-017-9747-2
2018: "Non-Genetic Risk Factors for Degenerative and Vascular Young Onset Dementia: Results from the INSPIRED and KGOW Studies." With M. Cations et al. Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, 62: 1747-1758.
doi:
10.3233/jad-171027
2023: "Ensemble feature selection with data-driven thresholding for Alzheimer's disease biomarker discovery." With A. Spooner et al. BMC Bioinformatics, 24(9).
doi:
10.1186/s12859-022-05132-9
^Sachdev, Perminder (March 1998). "Schizophrenia-like psychosis and epilepsy: the status of the association". American Journal of Psychiatry. 155 (3): 325–336.
doi:
10.1176/ajp.155.3.325.