Contact information
D.Phil PROJECTS
Please contact me if you would like to discuss research D.Phil opportunities in MRI neuroimaging relevant to our research activities.
I'm sorry, I am not able to offer research internships, shadowing or work experience placements.
Sources of Funding
- Medical Research Council
- British Medical Association
- HDH Wills 1965 Charitable Trust
NEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
Our online self-paced Oxford Clinical Neuroimaging Course is now live. Registrations open until early Spring 2026. A new format of the course will be released in April/May 2026.
If you are a clinical trainee, work with clinical populations, or generally have some experience with imaging and would like to learn more about the very practical uses of MRI in clinical settings, please do click on the link to see the full programme.
Natalie Voets
MA (Oxon), D.Phil
Associate Professor
- Principal Investigator, OxCIN (FMRIB Centre)
- Awake Intraoperative Neurosurgery Technician, OUH NHS Foundation Trust
Our research uses neuroimaging techniques to understand how the brain adapts to pathology, injury and treatment in order to improve neurosurgical approaches, outcomes and recovery.
Research Summary
Our translational research uses non-invasive MRI brain imaging techniques to understand how disease and damage affects brain function. Our main area of research is patients who are undergoing brain surgery to treat a brain tumour.
Our goal is to develop a better understanding of how the functional networks of the brain, and their underlying structural pathways, support function. Such understanding may enable us to identify patterns of brain activity that predict individual risks and recovery potential after neurosurgical treatment. This multidisciplinary research, based at the FMRIB Centre, is conducted in close collaboration with the Oxford Neuro-Oncology Surgery service and Glioma research group and the Oxford Epilepsy Surgery Programme as well as colleagues in the Department of Engineering.
Additional interests include the effects of head trauma on the brain, especially in children. This is a project spearheaded by Consultant neurosurgeon Tim Lawrence (more details on the TBI research group page).
Biography
I am an Associate Professor at the Oxford Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging (formerly FMRIB/Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging).
I studied Experimental Psychology at Oxford (1999-2002). I then completed a D.Phil at the FMRIB Centre (2002-2005) under the supervision of Prof. Paul Matthews focused on Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. Following a post-doctoral position with Prof. Tipu Aziz’s Deep Brain Stimulation research group, I spent 3 years as imaging scientist at the GlaxoSmithKline Clinical Imaging Centre (now Imanova). There, we assessed the sensitivity of multi-modal neuroimaging measures as early markers of efficacy for drugs targeting memory impairment among others. In 2009, I moved to the MNI to work in the NeuroImaging of Epilepsy laboratory for a short post-doctoral fellowship. I returned to the Oxford FMRIB Centre on a MRC Fellowship later that year.
Key publications
Challenges and opportunities for advancing functional MRI in clinical practice.
Journal article
Voets NL. et al, (2025), Brain, 148, 2242 - 2246
Clinical functional MRI for language mapping: Best Practice recommendations from the Organization for Human Brain Mapping
Preprint
Voets N. et al, (2024)
Functional MRI applications for intra-axial brain tumours: uses and nuances in surgical practise.
Journal article
Voets NL. et al, (2023), Br J Neurosurg, 37, 1544 - 1559
Diffusion tractography for awake craniotomy: accuracy and factors affecting specificity.
Journal article
Voets NL. et al, (2021), J Neurooncol, 153, 547 - 557
Tracking longitudinal language network reorganisation using functional MRI connectivity fingerprints.
Journal article
Voets NL. et al, (2021), Neuroimage Clin, 30
Brain white matter fibre tracts: a review of functional neuro-oncological relevance.
Journal article
Voets NL. et al, (2017), J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry, 88, 1017 - 1025
Recent publications
Separating the forest from the palm trees: Individual variation in a presurgical language mapping task.
Journal article
Voets NL. et al, (2026), Neuroimage Clin, 49
IterMask3D: Unsupervised anomaly detection and segmentation with test-time iterative mask refinement in 3D brain MRI.
Journal article
Liang Z. et al, (2026), Med Image Anal, 107
Challenges and opportunities for advancing functional MRI in clinical practice.
Journal article
Voets NL. et al, (2025), Brain, 148, 2242 - 2246
Evaluating Traditional, Deep Learning and Subfield Methods for Automatically Segmenting the Hippocampus From MRI.
Journal article
Sghirripa S. et al, (2025), Hum Brain Mapp, 46
Factors contributing to variability in neurocognitive performance before glioma neurosurgery.
Journal article
Lövgren I. et al, (2025), Neurooncol Pract, 12, 301 - 312
