Mayra Albayrak

I hold a BSc in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Amsterdam and an MSc in Neuroscience from University College London, where my research focused on affective cognitive biases in mood disorders. I’ve contributed to several projects across translational neuroscience including task development, memory reconsolidation, and resting-state fMRI analysis in addiction and affective disorders.

I am a research assistant in the NeuroSCOPE Lab at OxCIN, where I support a multi-modal project investigating anhedonia in depression. Anhedonia is the inability to feel pleasure or motivation and is a key symptom of depression that we are still working to understand. Our project combines high-field 7T MRI, cognitive testing, neurofeedback training, and digital ecological momentary assessments to explore and measure motivation in depression. The goal is to characterize the neurocomputational mechanisms of anhedonia using cognitive models, advanced brain imaging methods, and to inform personalized neurofeedback interventions that non-invasively modulate brain activity in people with depression.