Expertises

My PhD project encompasses clinical characterisation as well as neuroimaging of 8 to 12 year old children. Here I investigate compensatory brain changes in children with Tourette Syndrome. My pregraduate research  included animal models of chronic stress and depression, examining how chronic stress impacts the brain. Common to both are an underlying interest in brain plasticity.

Main research areas

Child psychiatry; Tourette Syndrome; ADHD;  motivation; cognitive control; response inhibition; fMRI

Current research

My PhD project examines the effect of motivation on self-regulation in children with Tourette Syndrome. Using fMRI I compare the brain activity of children with TS with that of typically developing controls and children with ADHD.

Because it is important that findings from MRI have relevance to everyday life, I also hope to find correlations between brain activity and behavioral measurements of risk tolerance and impulsivity from home and school. It is my hope that the knowledge gained from this study will help in the development of more effective, non-pharmacological treatments of children and adolescents with Tourette Syndrome.