Research
Ongoing Projects
I am currently working on several projects exploring the cognitive and neural basis of emotion regulation, emotion processing and empathy.
Firstly, I am conducting a study exploring emotion regulation in people who report feeling Depersonalised. We are piloting the use of a brain scanning method called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with rapid data transfer and analysis methods (real-time fMRI) in collaboration with the Centre for Neuroimaging Sciences at the IOP, and the University of Tubingen. This technique will enable brain activation data to be fedback to participants approximately 1.5 seconds after data collection, in neural feedback paradigms.I am also finalising an fMRI study exploring the brain areas activated when people with Asperger's Syndrome view moving, dynamic, social stimuli. This data tells us a little more about the kind of the strategies people with autistic spectrum disorders use to navigate the social world. It is funded by a charity called REMEDI.
Student projects I am supervising include a study of gender biases, and cultural and societal expectations in the reporting of empathy, and logical reasoning in different clinical groups.
I am also interested in the development of brain function and the processes of neural plasticity (the ability of the brain to change and adapt) across the lifespan, and to this end am involved in a project exploring brain development and function in adults who were born very 'preterm' i.e. before 33 weeks gestation.