Joana Braga Pereira

Joana Braga Pereira

Principal Researcher | Docent
Visiting address: Nobels väg 9, D3, 17165 Solna
Postal address: K8 Klinisk neurovetenskap, K8 Neuro Pereira, 171 77 Stockholm
Part of:

About me

  • I am an Associate Professor (Docent in Neurosciences), Principal
    Investigator and Group Leader at the Neuro Division of CNS. I have a PhD in
    Biomedicine by the University of Barcelona and did my Postdoctoral training
    at the NVS Department of KI.
    -------- Grants --------------------------------------------------------------
    /As Principal Investigator/
    * Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship (IEF)
    * Swedish Research Council
    * Alzheimerfonden
    * Hjärnfonden
    * Centrum för innovativ medicin (CIMED)
    * Stratneuro
    * Stohnes
    * Loo och Hans Ostermans stiftelse
    * Gamla Tjänarinnor
    * Lindhes Advokatbyra AB
    * KI Stiftelser
    * Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF)
    * Senior Research Faculty Position at Karolinska Institute
    -------- Conference organization ---------------------------------------------
    I have been a chairman of the yearly conference "Emerging Topics in
    Artificial Intelligence" since 2020, a highly interdisciplinary forum
    combining artificial intelligence with photonics, microscopy, active matter,
    biomedicine, and brain connectivity.
    Dates: 20-24 August 2023
    Location: San Diego, USA
    https://spie.org/OPN/conferencedetails/emerging-topics-in-ai?SSO=1
    • 2017. Postdoctoral Fellow in Neuroimaging, Karolinska Institute,
    Stockholm, Sweden.
    • 2012. PhD in Biomedicine, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
    • 2008. Master in Neurosciences, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.

Research

  • I am working with brain connectivity measures derived from structural MRI,
    functional MRI and diffusion tensor imaging in patients with Alzheimer's
    disease and Parkinson's disease. My current projects are focused on the
    assessment of brain connectivity and network topology in different stages of
    these disorders as well as their relationship with clinical measures. I also
    work with analyses of spatial patterns derived from amyloid and tau positron
    emission tomography as well as cerebrospinal fluid and plasma biomarkers and
    cognitive tests.
    -------- Research Group ------------------------------------------------------
    I currently lead a team of 3 PhD students, 3 Postdocs and 1 Research
    Assistant:
    .... Anna Canal Garcia
    PhD student working on integrating different neuroimaging modalities of
    patients with Alzheimer's disease into a single multilayer connectome, which
    can be used to assess the interaction between distinct pathological
    processes.
    Email: anna.canal.garcia@ki.se [1]
    .... Mite Mijalkov
    Postdoc developing new measures of dynamic brain connectivity for the
    analysis of functional magnetic resonance images in patients with Parkinson's
    disease.
    Email: mite.mijalkov@ki.se [2]
    .... Daniél Veréb
    Postdoc working with functional gradients and imaging preprocessing.
    Email: daniel.vereb@ki.se [3]
    .... Blanca Zufiria Gerboles
    PhD student working with different deep neural network architectures to
    understand anatomical brain connectivity and its relationship with gray
    matter atrophy and white matter lesions.
    Email: blanca.zufiria.gerboles@ki.se [4]
    .... Jiawei Sun
    PhD student working on the implementation of deep neural networks to predict
    non-linear changes in functional brain connectivity in healthy individuals
    and patients with neurodegenerative diseases.
    Email: jiawei.sun@ki.se [5]
    .... Zhilei Xu
    Postdoc working with the development of approaches to relate genetic
    information to brain connectivity measures.
    Email: zhilei.xu@ki.se [6]
    .... Massimiliano Passaretti
    Research Assistant assessing different disease progression pathways in
    neurodegenerative diseases using clinical and neuroimaging data.
    Email: massimiliano.passaretti@ki.se [7]
    ....
    In addition, we have following researchers affiliated to our group
    .... Emma Chadwick
    Clinical researcher interested in neuropsychological markers of dementia.
    Email: emma.chadwick@ki.se [8]
    .... Jasmine Soto SellDahl
    Clinical researcher interested in Alzheimer's disease.
    Email: jasmine.soto.selldahl@ki.se [9]
    .... Ida Karimpour
    Clinical researcher interested in Alzheimer's disease.
    Email: ida.karimpour@ki.se [10]
    -------- Co-supervision ------------------------------------------------------
    I am also the official co-supervisor of 4 PhD students from the University of
    Gothenburg and KTH:
    .. Fabian Sinzinger
    /Main supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Rodrigo Moreno, KTH Royal Institute of
    Technology./
    .. Yu-Wei Chang
    /Main supervisor: Prof. Giovanni Volpe, GU./
    .. Emiliano Gomez-Ruiz
    /Main supervisor: Prof. Giovanni Volpe, GU./
    .. Hang Zhao
    /Main supervisor: Prof. Giovanni Volpe, GU./
    -------- Alumni --------------------------------------------------------------
    I have supervised 4 PhD students that have already defended their thesis:
    Meera Srikrishna (GU), Emilia Schwertner (KI), Konstantinos Poulakis (KI),
    Gustav Mårtensson (KI).
    [1] mailto:anna.canal.garcia@ki.se
    [2] mailto:mite.mijalkov@ki.se
    [3] mailto:vereb.daniel@szte.hu
    [4] mailto:yu-wei.chang@physics.gu.se
    [5] mailto:yu-wei.chang@physics.gu.se
    [6] mailto:yu-wei.chang@physics.gu.se
    [7] mailto:yu-wei.chang@physics.gu.se
    [8] mailto:yu-wei.chang@physics.gu.se
    [9] mailto:yu-wei.chang@physics.gu.se
    [10] mailto:yu-wei.chang@physics.gu.se

Teaching

  • My areas of teaching expertise are the field of imaging analyses of magnetic
    resonance and positron emission tomography scans as well as the application
    of imaging measures to the assessment of neurodegenerative disorders.
    I have extensive experience in leading lectures, tutorials and software
    demonstrations as well as in the supervision of student's projects at the
    master and PhD level. I also have experience in course planning as well as an
    examiner and moderator.
    I am currently involved in the teaching of the following courses:
    .. Translational Molecular Imaging in Neurodegenerative Disorders
    /Organizers: Laetitia Lemoine, Elena Rodriguez-Vieitez/
    .. Biomarkers for Neurodegenerative Diseases
    /Organizers: Michael Schöll, Ros Patterson/
    .. Imaging in Neuroscience: With a focus on structural MRI methods
    /Organizers: Eric Westman, Daniel Ferreira/
    I am also organizing my own course together with Prof. Peter Fransson at KI:
    *Application of Graph Theory to the study of Brain Connectivity*
    Finally, together with Assoc. Prof. Rita Almeida, I organize a workship at
    SUBIC, Stockholm University:
    *BRAPH 2: A software for the analysis of brain connectivity using multilayer
    networks and deep learning*

Articles

All other publications

Employments

  • Principal Researcher, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, 2023-

Degrees and Education

  • Docent, Karolinska Institutet, 2021

News from KI

Events from KI