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Miriam Klein-Flügge

PhD MSc


Associate Professor

  • Wellcome Trust/Royal Society Henry Dale Fellow
  • Principal Investigator: Motivation, Decision and Neurostimulation Group
  • Fellow at Corpus Christi

Cognitive neuroscientist interested in decision making, ultrasound neuromodulation & mental health

Research

I am a Wellcome Trust/Royal Society Henry Dale fellow working jointly between the Departments of Psychiatry and Experimental Psychology, and the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging (WIN). I am the Principal Investigator of the Motivation, Decision and Neurostimulation lab. In my group, we study processes related to emotion, motivation and decision-making. In particular, our work aims to understand how the human brain enables us to flexibly adjust our decisions to complex internal and external circumstances. For example, when decisions require physical effort (motivation), sequences of actions, or taking into account changes of context. We use brain imaging (fMRI, MEG, EEG), causal stimulation techniques (TMS, tDCS, ultrasound), computational modelling and behavioural/cognitive tasks to study these processes.

More recently, we have embarked on two new research themes: we have begun to examine the structure and function of subcortical regions located deep within the brain to help us understand their contribution to flexible decision-making. And we have started to study how decision computations are altered by mental illness because we do not currently understand which brain systems support changes in motivation and decision-making in these patients or precisely which aspects of decision-making are changed.

Please refer to my personal website and group website for more information (both links are shown on the left).

Education

I hold an undergraduate degree in Mathematics, Computer Science and Cognitive Science from the University of Osnabrück (Germany) and McGill University (Canada). I completed an MSc in Neuroscience at the University of Oxford and a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience at UCL under the supervision of Sven Bestmann. My postdoctoral work as a Henry Wellcome Fellow was in Matthew Rushworth's laboratory in Oxford. 

Funding

  • Wellcome Trust
  • European Research Council - now converted to UKRI
  • Medical Research Council

Public outreach

I enjoy outreach and in particular teaching children and young people about the brain. I have taken part in various outreach activities in museums and schools, including a recent live MRI school lesson which can be watched here: https://encounteredu.com/live-lessons/your-amazing-brain-live-experiment-160622

Recent publications

More publications