Previous academic positions

• Visiting faculty, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA (PI: Tor Wager)
• Post doc, Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, Berlin/London; Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany (PI: Douglas D Garrett)
• Post doc, Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Sweden (PI: Håkan Fischer)
• Study Director, Psychiatry Research School, Centre for Psychiatry Research, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden (2017-2020)

Dr Tsikonofilos holds a Diploma in Applied Mathematical and Physical Sciences from the National Technical University of Athens, an MSc in Biomedical Engineering, and a PhD in Bioengineering from Imperial College London, UK. With expertise in statistics, computer science, and neurotechnology, he specializes in analyzing various datasets including spiking, local field potential, ECoG, EEG, and fMRI. His skills encompass signal processing, machine learning and statistical modeling, graph theory and computational modeling, with experience in experimental design and data collection of electrophysiological signals, as well as preclinical modeling of brain injury.

Dr Tsikonofilos previous research had a clinical focus on cognitive enhancers, hearing loss, cochlear implant design, and traumatic brain injury. Currently a postdoctoral researcher in the lab, he will work towards uncovering biomarkers of psychiatric disorders and treatment outcomes and exploring the role of neural variability and plasticity in fear avoidance behavior, utilizing multimodal datasets.

Dr Zika completed his BSc in Psychology & Marketing at Aberystwyth University, during which he worked as a research assistant (RA) at Caltech in John O'Doherty's lab, before moving to Oxford University first as an RA in Sonia Bishop's lab and later as a PhD student. During his PhD, Dr Zika investigated computational and neural mechanisms of aversive learning in relation to anxiety. He later joined the lab of Dr Nico Schuck at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development where he continued his work on a brad range of topics in computational psychiatry and cognitive neuroscience. At the Månsson lab, Dr Zika investigates test-retest reliability of neural signals, as well as perception of ambiguity in a psychiatric and a non-clinical sample.

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Amir studied medical imaging at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and has been working with neuroimaging methods as a research engineer since 2010. Amir has been involved in research on Alzheimer’s disease, gender identity, emotion, stress and anxiety disorders. Amir has extensive experience with data collection (e.g., magnetic resonance imaging, MRI scanning), and expertise in data pre- and post-processing, higher level statistical analyses on functional MRI data, e.g., psycho-physiological interactions (PPI), partial least squares (PLS), support vector machines (SVM), and independent component analysis (ICA). Moreover, Amir also has extensive expertise in structural MRI data analysis, e.g., FreeSurfer, AFNI, BrainVoyager, and voxel based morphometry (VBM), and tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS).

Jingjing Ye is a PhD student from University of Edinburgh. Jing's project focuses on using functional MRI to understand cerebellar and emotional network in rat model of autism.

Oana is a PhD student, and a medical child and adolescent psychiatry resident at Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Oana participates in the development of a study to investigates the neural correlates of social fear learning among adolescents diagnosed with anxiety disorders.

Tuğçe completed a BSc in psychology in Turkey, and MSc in Cognitive Neuroscience and Clinical Neuropsychology at Padova University, Italy, before joining the lab as a PhD student. Tuğçe will use a variety of scientific methods and analytic techniques to investigate the brain of patients with social anxiety disorder, including functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and magnetoencephalography (MEG). For instance, Tuğçe will investigate brain signal variability and signal complexity, as well as gray matter volume in patients with social anxiety disorder.

Before joining the lab, Holland studied cognitive science and applied mathematics at the City University of New York (United States), and biomedical imaging and machine learning at Weill Cornell Medicine, US. In previous positions, Holland contributed to research studies of visual processing, schizophrenia, and late-life depression using psychophysics, statistical modeling, and functional magnetic resonance imaging. Holland is currently involved in studies investigating the relationships between expectation, neural dynamics, and treatment outcome in social anxiety disorder. The research aim is to better understand the neural mechanisms of psychiatric patients' expectations of treatment outcomes.

Josefine is currently studying her second year at läkarprogrammet (medical degree), Karolinska institutet. She works as a research assistant in the lab. Josefine is supporting the TreVar research project.

Marion is a student at Psykologprogrammet (Master of Psychology), Stockholm University and a research assistant in the lab. Specifically, Marion is supporting the TreVar research project by coordinating information and participants recruited from a psychiatric clinic within Region Stockholm. Marion interview and schedule participants, assist other staff at the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner, as well as setting up a computerized experiment for our participants.

Naira is a final year medical student and previously completed an internship at Stockholm University Brain Imaging Center (SUBIC). During her internship, Naira participated in acquisition of magnetic resonance brain images, collecting physiological and behavioural data, testing experimental protocols for research projects, and performed data analysis of structural and functional MRI data. Naira is currently working as a research assistant, support data collection in the TreVar research project.

Sebastian is a student at Psykologprogrammet (Master of Psychology), Karolinska Institutet and a research assistant in the lab. Sebastian is supporting the TreVar research project with healthy control recruitment.

Vanessa studied clinical psychology at the University of Padova, Italy, where she developed expertise in biofeedback and neurofeedback techniques. In previous positions, she contributed to research on metabolic diseases, stress in diabetic patients, and the relationship between depressive symptoms and self-regulation and interoception through psychophysiological assessments. Further, Vanessa have analyzed heart rate variability (HRV) in subclinical depressed individuals. Vanessa will be involved in our projects investigating the relationships between expectation, neural dynamics, and treatment outcomes in depression, social anxiety disorder, and insomnia.

• Enzo Nio, PhD student at University Hospital Essen, Germany
• Alice Doubliez, student at University Hospital Essen, Germany

• National: Adam Yngve, Anna Stavenberg, Arian Jafari, Björn von Gegerfelt, Bo Jenner, Hjalmar Lindström, Jennie Åberg Syed, Johannes Mogren, Markus Söderqvist, Mathilda Björkman, Nikolay Popov, Nils Isacsson, Sara Rajjala, Simon Höglund, Örn Kolbeinsson
• International: Laura Terlau (Osnabrück University, Germany), Liisbeth Pirn (University of Munich, Germany), Virginia Berlose (University of Padoa, Italy), Alice Clerouin (Ecole Normale Supérieure, France), Katarzyna Karpa (Universität Heidelberg, Germany), Sara Halmans (University of Lübeck, Germany), Federica Mazzilli (Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy)