CSHC - Center for the Study of Human Cognition

Professor of cognitive psychology
Part time position (15%) as a researcher at the Department of Neuropsychology, Ullevål University Hospital

Main research interests
How does the brain develop and change during the life-span, and which cognitive consequences does this development have? My research is focused on understanding the dynamic relationship between changes in brain structure, brain function, and cognitive abilities. Participants in these studies range from 7 to 90 years of age.

I am professor in cognitive neuropsychology with the department of psychology, University of Oslo (Norway) and adjunct professor with the Institute of Biological and Medical Psychology, University of Bergen, Norway. I received my B.A. in experimental psychology in 1987 from Universitá La Sapienza (Rome, Italy) and my Ph.D. in biological psychology in 1993 from The University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA). My former research and teaching career includes the University of Tromsø (Norway), University of Guelph (Canada), and Harvard University (USA). I have also been a Clinical Research Fellow, at Harvard Medical School, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Professor of clinical neuropsychology

I am a clinical neuropsychologist with a strong interest in integration of neuropsychology with neuroscience. My basic training was at the University of Oslo, and my dr.philos. work in 1984 was on aphasia, based on 10 years of clinical research with stroke patients. I have held clinical positions at Sunnaas Rehabilitation hospital and at Rikshospitalet University hospital, from 1983 I had an adjunct academic position at the Department of Psychology and in 1993 I became full professor.  My current main interests are in aging and dementia, and in the influence of genetic variation on individual differences. Also I have been involved in a broad range of clinical studies of neurological patients groups (head injury, epilepsy, stroke).

Professor of Neuropsychology

I am a trained clinical neuropsychologist, with special focus on test development and the assessment of cognition in neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. I did my cand.psychol. and dr.philos. degrees at the University of Oslo, served as full time neuropsychologist at Sunnaas Rehabilitation Hospital and Rikshospitalet University Hospital, as assistant professor in neuro¬psychology at the universities of Oslo and Tromsø, and since 2003 as full time professor at the Institute of  Psychology, University of Oslo, together with part time practice as specialist in clinical neuro¬psy¬chology. As head of the neurocognitive unit of the Thematic Organized Psychosis (TOP) research group at the Medical Department, University of Oslo, I supervise studies on neurocognition in schizophrenia and bipolar disorders.

Professor of cognitive neuropsychology
Part time position (15%) as a researcher at the Department of Neuropsychology, Ullevål University Hospital

Main research interests
My current research is targeted at understanding the mechanisms underlying different types of change in brain and cognition, and whether, and how, we ourselves can initiate, enhance or slow them. Throughout life, our mental capacities and brains are under continuous alteration: Some changes are part of positive development, others are debilitating.

Professor

E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Fax: (+47) 22 84 50 51
Telephone: (+47) 22 84 51 46

Main research projects
My main research interests are cognitive/experimental and clinical neuropsychology. I have ongoing projects on neuropsychological impairments and brain function in mood and impulsivity disorders. A main issue is to link neuropsychology and  genetics, neurotransmittors and brain imaging. Another main topic is to identify cognitive vulnerability markers for mood and impulsivity disorders in healthy people. I am also involved in projects related to neuropsychological aspects of chronic pain and white matter CNS diseases as well as neurobehavioral consequences of fetal alcohol exposure.

Professor of Cognitive Psychology

Areas of interest/ projects:
Ongoing empirical projects focus on basic mechanisms of visual information processing, attention and memory, and the applied aspects of cognition studied in the context of eyewitness testimony; many of these are large-scale collaborative projects with laboratories and research groups at the University of Freiburg and the University of Regensburg (Germany), the University of California at Los Angeles and Davis, and University of Padua, Italy.

Professor of Cognitive Psychology

E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Fax: (+47) 22 84 50 01
Telephone: (+47) 22 84 51 26

I am a cognitive psychologist, with a particular interest in memory. I did my first degree at the University of Exeter, and my PhD at the University of Nottingham. Since then I have worked at Université Pierre Mendès France and the Hôpital Michallon (Grenoble), Université de Savoie (Chambéry), and the University of Tromsø. I was made full professor at the University of Oslo in 2003. In addition to lab-based research on basic cognitive functions, I try to apply experimental cognitive methods in unconventional settings, where, I believe, there is a lot of unrealised potential.

Lecturer in Cognitive Psychology

I am a cognitive psychologist with a growing interest for the relationship between models of cognitive functioning and the brain. I have a background from Human Factors research related to advanced control room settings and finished my PhD on cognitive aspects of metaphor reasoning at the University of Oslo.

My main research interest is in the relationship between low and high level cognitive mechanisms, general human memory both in everyday settings and in the laboratory, the relationship between emotion and cognition.

Post Doctoral Fellow at the Institute of Psychology, University of Oslo, and Neuroimaging Research Fellowship at the Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine.

Areas of interest: 

• The functions and purpose of the neurotransmitters serotonin (5-HT) and norepinephrine.
• Brain imaging techniques such as PET and fMRI.
• Sex differences in response to serotonergic depletion.
• Sex differences in the prevalence of depression, anxiety, addiction, AD/HD and impulse control disorders.
• Impulsivity (behaviour and strategy on neuropsychological tests).
• Drug addiction, PTSD, transcultural research and developmental issues.

Post Doc

Ph.D. student in Psychology

I finished my psychology degree at the University of Oslo in 2006 and have since been a Ph.D. student. My Ph.D. project is entitled Neuropsychology, ERP and MRI as measures of development of brain structure and function. The main goal of my project is to contribute to a better understanding of normal cognitive development and its biological basis. It is part of a larger project called Life span development and decline in cognition – biological foundations.

I am particularly interested in the normal development of different aspects of cognitive control and memory of children and adolescents and how this is related to the development of the brain.

PhD student

Psychologist and PhD-student

I am accredited psychologist with a degree in clinical psychology from University of Oslo (cand. psychol) and a BA in psychology from COGS at University of Sussex (Brighton, UK). My areas of main interest today are: Clinical neuropsychology, cognitive rehabilitation/remediation/training, brain connectivity and plasticity, and rehabilitation psychology.

PhD Research Fellow

I’m part of a research team utilizing various structural and functional neuroimaging techniques (structural/functional magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI/fMRI), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), electroencephalography (EEG), event-related potentials (ERP)) in the study of brain/behaviour interactions. The research is aimed at characterizing the dynamic relations between cerebral structural/functional and cognitive alterations accompanying normal child development and aging, but also the interruptions of this dynamics in pathological conditions like Alzheimer’s disease. Efforts are also aimed at understanding the genetic contribution to individual differences in cerebral structure, function and cognition, and further what role this genotypic variation plays in the manifestations of pathological neurodegenerative phenotypes/conditions. For more details, see my publications. 

Coming Soon

PhD student

I am a psychologist studying for a PhD, with a project about cognitive and brain development during childhood and adolescence (8-19 years). Ca 100 children and adolescents are undergoing MRI scanning, cognitive/neuropsychological testing, and electrophysiological measurements while doing cognitive tasks (ERP). The MRI scans acquired are both structural, morphometric scans, and DTI scans.