Neuroscience and Mental Health

Neuroscientist Ola Hermanson aims to both understand the development of the healthy brain and lay the groundwork for improved treatments for serious diseases. He is also keen to drive technological developments in bioprinting, amongst other areas.

Maja Jagodic studies how the disease MS arises and why it affects people so differently. Research at an epigenetic level is appropriate both for understanding the disease and for finding new ways to treat it, she says.

Evaluating options and making decisions are two of the brain’s most fundamental functions in all animals. Konstantinos Meletis studies brain processes, using new technologies to understand how this works.

Christina Samuelsson is hoping to make life easier for children and adults with communicative disabilities. Her research ranges from the importance of gestures for children with developmental language disorders to digital conversational support in elderly care homes.

Much of Fang Fang’s research concerns ALS. Although her background is in epidemiology, she likes to integrate other types of research. In her view, multidisciplinary collaboration is key to understand and, in the long run, to cure the disease.

Emily Holmes is passionate about better psychological treatments based on science. Her research concerns how we think and remember in mental images and developing new treatments based on this knowledge.

Rune Brautaset has modernised optometry studies at KI and laid the groundwork for an optometric research environment at the university. He is currently researching how neurodegenerative diseases can be detected in the retina.

The prefrontal cortex is the centre for advanced cerebral function – it is here our impressions of the world are formed, plans forged and decisions made. By studying the real-time activity of neurons, Marie Carlén maps the functions of the prefrontal cortex.

When we draw conclusions in our everyday lives, what we learn is often linked to emotions – such as that a particular matter is important, a person has a high status, or that an environment is frightening. Andreas Olsson studies how this learning takes place in social situations.

Living with chronic pain is challenging – not least because of the limited number of good treatments. Camilla Svensson is researching the mechanisms behind persistent pain in rheumatic diseases and how it can be tackled in new, more effective ways.

Mental disorders, such as depressive and anxiety disorders, can lead to long-term sick leave – but excessively prolonged sick leave can also aggravate the illness. Ellenor Mittendorfer-Rutz conducts research on the links between mental disorders and social insurance.

Ole Kiehn's research is about understanding how neurons and neural networks operate to generate complex brain function. In his lab, researchers combine electrophysiology and anatomy with molecular mouse genetics, optogenetics and behavioral analyses.

Henrik Ehrsson's research is centered on the question of how we come to perceive ownership over our bodies – how visual, tactile and proprioceptive information are combined to obtain a single coherent object that is one's own body.

Ingrid Kockum is researching into multiple sclerosis, MS, and is leading the major international collaboration MultipleMS. By combining many different types of data, the project will generate increased knowledge on various types of MS.

Gonçalo Castelo-Branco investigates the cells that produce myelin, the vital insulation that ensheathes our nerve cells. He has made unexpected findings that might help to explain what causes MS and eventually give rise to novel treatments.

Brjánn Ljótsson researches cognitive behavioural therapy , CBT. He has helped to develop and establish online CBT, and researches how CBT can improve the lives of people with physical disease.

Christian Rück is a psychiatrist who researches different types of obsessive-compulsive disorders – both causes and treatments. He has developed Internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) that is currently used in psychiatry in Sweden as well as abroad.

Eric Westman combines brain imaging with machine learning to search the whole brain for the mechanisms behind neuro-degenerative disorders. An important element of his research is to identify different subtypes of diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder and related conditions are more common than many other mental disorders but have long been neglected by both research and psychiatric care. David Mataix-Cols wants to change that.

Gilad Silberberg's research focuses above all on the basal ganglia and how they form the fundamental link between sensory perception and motor function.

Sandra Ceccatelli's research aims at identifying mechanisms of prenatal damage in the nervous system that trigger behavioral impairment later in life.