Measuring the Mind: Improving How We Understand Cognitive Change
Early Investigator Spotlight: Dr. Juan-Camilo Vargas-González
October 22, 2025
Meet Dr. Juan-Camilo Vargas-González
Dr. Juan-Camilo Vargas-González is a Clinical Teacher in Cognitive Neurology at the University Health Network and an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto. Originally from Colombia, he trained in neurology and stroke medicine before completing his PhD in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Western University, where he studied how having multiple health conditions affects cognitive decline.
After completing a fellowship in cognitive neurology at Toronto Western Hospital, he joined the Memory Clinic team, where he continues to combine clinical work with research on cognitive disorders. His goal is to improve how we measure and understand dementia so that diagnosis and treatment can be more accurate and personalized.
What drew you to dementia research?
What makes humans unique is our brain. That curiosity led me into neurology. But within the field, I realized that dementia is different — it takes away people’s sense of who they are. Neurodegenerative diseases are also among the most complex, and I believe they are one of the most urgent challenges in healthcare. There is little point in living longer if we lose what makes us ourselves.
What are you working on now?
My research focuses on measurement — finding better ways to detect and track cognitive change. Unlike other areas of medicine, dementia has no simple physical test we can rely on. Instead, we use scales and questionnaires to measure thinking and memory, often based on what family members or caregivers observe.
I study what is known as the informant effect — how a caregiver’s background, stress, or perception can unintentionally influence how we rate a person’s symptoms. By understanding and correcting for this bias, we can make research results and clinical assessments more accurate.
Why does this work matter?
If we can reduce bias in how we measure cognitive changes, all dementia research becomes more reliable. That accuracy is essential for clinical trials, for evaluating new treatments, and for giving families clear and fair information about their loved ones’ condition.
Where do you see your career going next?
In the future, I hope to help solve the puzzle of personalized diagnosis and treatment for dementia. My vision is to help design and test the methods that will allow individualized therapies to reach as many people as possible.
Looking at the bigger picture
Dr. Vargas-González’s work brings clarity to one of the most complex challenges in dementia research: how to measure what cannot be seen. By improving the accuracy of how we assess cognitive change, his research lays the groundwork for fairer studies, earlier diagnosis, and ultimately, better care for people living with dementia and their families.