MRC CBU - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Research Fellow ( Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow )
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Schumacher, R., HALAI, A. D., LAMBON-RALPH, M. (2019) Assessing and mapping language, attention and executive multidimensional deficits in stroke aphasia, Brain, 142(10), 3202-3216 [Open Access]
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Job Titles:
- Deputy Director
- Research Staff Member
- Programme Leader
Job Titles:
- Early Career Fellow
- Research Fellow ( Leverhulme Trust )
Alexis Deighton MacIntyre is an Early Career Fellow funded by the Leverhulme Trust and Isaac Newton Trust at the Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit. Her research interests include speech and auditory perception, temporal cognition, and how auditory and motor rhythmic processes relate to speech production and perception. Alexis is currently working with Dr. Matt Davis and Dr. Tobias Goehring on her project, "Finding the Flow: Temporal Contributions to Speech Perception and Intelligibility". Previously, she and Dr. Goehring investigated the neural correlates of speech perception in cochlear implant users. Before coming to the CBU, she undertook her PhD with Professor Sophie Scott at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, where she researched speech breathing using behavioural and physiological methods, as well as developed automated approaches for the analysis of the speech and speech breathing time series.
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Assistant
- Research Staff Member
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Programme Leader
Amy is a Programme Leader Track Scientist at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge and a Fellow at St. John's College, University of Cambridge. She leads the Digital Mental Health programme at the MRC CBU.
Her programme's research examines how digital technologies affect adolescent psychological well-being and mental health. She is particularly interested in the potential cognitive, biological and social mechanisms that underlie this link in both non-clinical and clinical populations, and the influence of individual differences. To study such research questions, Amy's team uses innovative and rigorous statistical methodology, secondary datasets, and Open Science approaches. Their results, in turn, shed new light on pressing questions debated in policy, parenting and mental health, having informed advice given by national and international experts such as the UK Chief Medical Officers and the US Surgeon General.
Amy's work is supported by key national and international funders, charities and foundations, and she advises governments, health officials and public servants around the world, holding appointments on the UK government's Department for Science, Innovation and Technology College of Experts and the British Academy Public Policy Committee. She has received a range of prestigious awards including the Medical Research Council Early Career Impact Prize (2022), British Psychological Society Award for Outstanding Contributions to Doctoral Research (2019), Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science Mission Award (2020), British Neuroscience Association Researcher Credibility Prize (2021) and UK Reproducibility Network Dorothy Bishop Early Career Researcher Prize (2022).
Previous to joining the MRC CBU, Amy completed an MA in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge before joining the University of Oxford to obtain her DPhil in Experimental Psychology, for which she was awarded the BPS Award for Outstanding Doctoral Research 2019.
Her updated CV is available here.
ORBEN, A. , Blakemore, S-J. (2023) How social media affects teen mental health: the missing factor, Nature, 614(7948):410-412
Modecki, K.L., Goldberg, R., Wisniewski, P., ORBEN, A. (2022) What is digital parenting? A systematic review of past measurement and blueprint for the future, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 17(6):1673-1691
ORBEN, A. (2022) Digital Diet: A 21st century approach to understanding digital technologies and development, Infant and Child Development, 31(1), e2228 [Open Access]
I am a PhD student in the Digital Mental Health Group, supervised by Amy Orben. I completed my Bachelor in Advanced Studies (Psychology) at the University of Sydney and have previously worked as a clinical researcher at the Brain and Mind Centre. I am interested in examining how social media use impacts adolescent's mental health at the individual level and developing digital interventions to improve young people's wellbeing.
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Job Titles:
- Deputy Director
- Programme Leader
I am a Senior Investigator Scientist in the Speech, Hearing and Language Group of the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit. My research interests are based around aspects of human audition, and in particular: pitch perception; speech recognition; auditory grouping and segregation; hearing through cochlear and auditory brainstem implants.
COSENTINO, S., Guadrain, E., DEEKS, J. M., CARLYON, R.P. (2016) Multistage nonlinear optimization to recover neural activation patterns from evoked compound action potentials of cochlear implant users, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering [Open Access]
CARLYON, R., Monstrey, J., DEEKS, J. , Macherey, O, (2014) Evaluation of a cochlear-implant processing strategy incorporating phantom stimulation and asymmetric pulses, International Journal of Audiology, 53(12), 871-879 [Open Access]
DEEKS, J. M., GOCKEL, H.E., CARLYON, R.P. (2013) Further examination of complex pitch perception in the absence of a place-rate match, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 133(1), 377-388
CARLYON, R.P., DEEKS, J. , SHTYROV, Y., GRAHN, J., GOCKEL, H.E., HAUK, O. & PULVERMULLER, F. (2009) Changes in the perceived duration of a narrowband sound induced by a preceding stimulus: a retrospective effect in auditory perception?, Journal of Experimental Psychology - Human Perception and Performance, 35(6), 1898-1912
CARLYON, R.P., Long, C., & DEEKS, J. M. (2008) Pulse-rate discrimination by cochlear-implant and normal-hearing listeners with and without binaural cues, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 123(4), 2276-2286 [Open Access]
CARLYON, R.P., & DEEKS, J. M (2001) Limits on temporal pitch perception: implications for acoustic and electric hearing, British Journal of Audiology, 35, 153-155
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Programme Leader
NORD, C. L. (2021) Predicting response to brain stimulation in depression: a roadmap for biomarker discovery, Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports, 8(1), 11-19 [Open Access]
NORD, C. L., Halahakoon, D.C., Lally, N., Limbachya, T., Pilling ,S,. Roiser, J.P. (2020) The neural basis of hot and cold cognition in depressed patients, unaffected relatives, and low-risk healthy controls: an fMRI investigation, Journal of Affective Disorders, 274, 1 September 2020, 389-398 [Open Access]
I am a PhD student supervised by Camilla Nord and Caitlin Hitchcock, studying the cognitive, neural and inflammatory basis of intrusive memories. My PhD project will use experimental methodologies to elucidate the maladaptive mechanisms underlying intrusive memories, and transition insights from basic science to the identification of treatment approaches. Currently, the ability for research to uncover these links is hampered by the common use of standard psychiatric diagnostic categories. These disorder categories are highly correlated and heterogeneous in terms of their defining symptomology, and lead to categorical lines being drawn that lack biological specificity. Throughout my PhD, I will adopt a transdiagnostic approach to enable us to establish clear links between symptoms and their underlying cognitive and neurobiological mechanisms, and critically move towards improved treatments for intrusive memories.
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Post - Doctoral Research Associate
- Research Staff
Charlotte is a Post-doctoral Research Associate in Dr. Bob Carlyon's lab working on psychophysical and electrophysiological markers of spatial selectivity and temporal auditory processing in cochlear implant users. Specifically, she is currently working on objective measures of cortical responses to sustained, fast-rate, amplitude-modulated electrical stimuli using both Electrocochleography (EEG) and cochlear implant reverse telemetry approaches via direct stimulation. The project is called 'ALternating Frequency Interleaved Electrical Stimulation,' or ALFIES, thusly named [completely coincidentally] identically to Bob's dog (Carlyon, et al 2021; Guérit et al 2023).
Charlotte also completed her Ph.D. at the CBU, was funded jointly by the W. D. Armstrong Trust for projects focused on the application of engineering in medicine and the Cambridge Trust, and was supervised by Bob Carlyon, Manohar Bance and Richard Turner. Her doctoral research was primarily focused on using objective measures for improving speech perception in poor-performing cochlear implant users and involved the development and validation of the Panoramic ECAP Method. Her research interests also include pitch and music perception in hearing impaired listeners using various auditory technology platforms. She holds a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering and a B.A. in Music Theory & Cognition from Northwestern University (Chicago, USA), and prior to joining the CBU she worked as a Biomedical Engineer in the healthcare industry developing and implementing multivariate process control systems for radio-frequency welding processes.
Charlotte is a recipient of the Centre for Integrative Neurosciences Discovery (CIND)'s 2023 Early Career Researcher Award for her project entitled 'Personalising Cochlear Implant Healthcare: Translating the Panoramic ECAP Method from laboratory to clinic' and of an MRC Confidence in Concept Award for 2024 for an extension of this project. She is also the chair of the MRC Cognition & Brain Science Unit's Equality and Diversity Committee.
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
PULVERMULER, F., COOK, C. , HAUK, O. (2012) Inflection in action: Semantic motor system activation to noun- and verb-containing phrases is modulated by the presence of overt grammatical markers., NeuroImage, 60(2), 1367-1379 [Read More]
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Fellow ( Fondation Pour L'Audition )
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Visiting Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Technical Officer
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Programme Leader
I use computational neuroscience techniques to model the organisational principles of structural and functional brain development in childhood and adolescenceli. In particular, I'm interested in how these principles change over time, vary across phenotypes, and their underlying mechanisms, such as the relationship with genes. To do so, I use large-scale multi-omic data sets, including the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, the Centre for Attention, Learning, and Memory (CALM), and the Nathan-Kline Institute (NKI). Code for existing projects can be found at https://github.com/AlicjaMonaghan.
My work is supervised by Prof. Duncan Astle (Cambridge), with Prof. Camilla Nord (Cambridge) as Advisor. I am funded by Corpus Christi College, the ESRC Doctoral Training Programme, and the Alan Turing Institute.
I am passionate about understanding brain organisation as it relates to behaviour, learning, and cognition in childhood. I am especially interested in the early emergence of structural brain organisation, which I currently research using generative network modelling techniques with neonates. The aim of my PhD is to explore the brain-behaviour relationship in neurodiverse populations in order to better understand developmental trajectories.
I am supervised by Duncan Astle (4D Lab) and advised by Joni Holmes (Cognition, Education, & Emotions Lab). My studies are funded by the Gates Cambridge Scholarship. Before Cambridge, I received my BA in neuroscience and behaviour with a minor in education at Vassar College, NY, USA.
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Visiting Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Coordinator, 4D Lab
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Job Titles:
- Deputy Unit Manager / Senior HR Coordinator
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Computer Officer
Job Titles:
- Research Associate
- Research Staff Member
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Programme Leader
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Visiting Scientist
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Computer Officer
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Visiting Scientist
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Finance Administrator
- Research Staff Member
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
DEEKS, J. M. & CARLYON, R.P. (2004) Simulations of cochlear implant hearing using filtered harmonic complexes: Implications for concurrent sound segregation , Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, April 2004, 115(4), 1736-1746
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Programme Leader
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Programme Leader
I am a PhD student in the Genomic Disorders and Cognitive Development group, supervised by Kate Baker. I completed my Bachelor in Speech Pathology and Masters in Clinical Neuroscience in Brisbane, Australia before moving to the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit. My interest lies in whether network connectivity differs in children with intellectual impairment of known genetic origin across the cellular, structural, functional, and behavioural levels. It is my hope to use computational modelling to further elucidate how specific gene variants shape the development of the brain and behaviour.
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Governance and Information Manager
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Visiting Scientist
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Fellow
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Fellow ( Marie Curie )
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Fellow ( Newton Fellow )
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Visiting Scientist
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
My research seeks to understand the cognitive and neural mechanisms of speech comprehension. A key challenge for listeners is comprehending the intended meaning of a speaker given that many of the words we use have multiple meanings (e.g. "ace" can refer to a tennis serve or to a playing card, and is also a synonym for "brilliant"). I am using EEG/MEG and behavioural methods to test cognitive theories and learn more about the brain networks that support successful language comprehension, and to understand why comprehension sometimes fails.
My research is interested in speech production and perception, and the interactions between these at both the behavioural and the neural level. To study this, I use sensorimotor integration tasks such as the altered auditory feedback paradigm, in which speakers unconsciously correct for artificially induced ‘errors' in their speech auditory feedback (the sound of their voice as they are speaking). I am interested in how the brain compares the intended or predicted speech feedback with that produced, in order to adjust our productions so they remain accurate. I am also interested in how perceptual experience of other voices can shape our intended speech targets, over both longer timescales (e.g. development of accents) as well as at shorter timescales (e.g. phonetic convergence between interlocutors during a single interaction).
I currently hold a Leverhulme Trust Early Career fellowship within Matt Davis' group for a project entitled "Testing prediction as a unified framework for speech production and perception". This will investigate if predictions during speech production are implemented in the brain in the same way as for speech perception, as proposed in predictive coding and active inference accounts of perception and action. Specifically, I will use decoding methods on multivariate fMRI data to investigate whether responses in auditory cortex to the self-voice during speech production represent prediction errors.
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Unit Director
- Programme Leader
I am a first-year PhD student supervised by Ajay Halai and co-supervised by Matt Lambon-Ralph and Alex Woolgar. My work spans acquired brain injury, neuroplasticity and network neuroscience. During my time at the CBU, I will be working on investigating the mechanistic underpinnings of spontaneous functional recovery observed in aphasic patients and the recruitment of domain-general networks in such processes. I will achieve this by using fMRI, non-invasive brain stimulation and computational modelling to investigate network disruption through a ‘perturb and measure' approach (i.e., brain stimulation followed by fMRI) and hope to further build on our understanding of the post-stroke neuroplastic response.
I am a Principal Investigator (MRC Career Development Award 2021-2026) and Senior Research Associate.
HUMPHT=REYS, G.F., HALAI, A. D., BRANZI, F.M., LAMBON RALPH, M.A. (2024) The left posterior angular gyrus is engaged by autobiographical recall not object-semantics, or event-semantics: Evidence from contrastive propositional speech production, Imaging Neuroscience, March 06, 2024 [Open Access]
SCHUMACHER, R., HALAI, A. , LAMBON RALPH, M.A. (2022) Attention to attention in aphasia - elucidating impairment patterns, modality differences and neural correlates, Neuropsychologia, 177:108413 [Open Access]
ZHAO, Y., HALAI, A. , LAMBON RALPH, M.A. (2020) Evaluating the granularity and statistical structure of lesions and behaviour in post-stroke aphasia, Brain Communications, 19 May 2020, 2(2):fcaa062 [Open Access]
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Fellow ( Isaac Newton Trust Research Fellow in Neuroscience )
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Head of Methods Group
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Job Titles:
- Research Staff and Statistical Methods Support
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Visiting Scientist
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Programme Leader
My research focuses on understanding the cognitive and neural basis of human episodic memory. I am particularly interested in episodic encoding and retrieval processes and their specific interplay with semantic memories. In my research I use a combination of behavioral and functional brain imaging techniques (MRI and EEG/MEG) to test cognitive theories and to ultimately advance our understanding of how brain networks might support different memory processes. Furthermore, I am interested in using neural network simulations to improve our insight into how cognitive theories link in with observed neural dynamics.
WOOLGAR, A. , THOMPSON, R., Bor, D., DUNCAN, J. (2011) Multi-voxel coding of stimuli, rules, and responses in human frontoparietal cortex, NeuroImage, 56(2), 744-752
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Fellow ( Vetenskapsrådet )
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Job Titles:
- Multimedia Support Specialist
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Job Titles:
- Receptionist
- Research Staff Member
I am a PhD student in the Cognition, Emotion and Mental Health group, supervised by Tim Dalgleish. My research aims to investigate the emotional, cognitive and social factors related to mental health in adolescence, with a particular focus on the impact of trauma.
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Fellow ( MRC Career Development Fellow )
Job Titles:
- Finance Assistant
- Research Staff Member
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff
Job Titles:
- Directors PA and Communications Officer
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Graduate Student
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Unit Manager
- Unit Manager - Contact for All General Unit Information
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member
- Research Staff