Team
Carsten Finke
Principal Investigator
Carsten is a Heisenberg Professor and consultant neurologist at the Department of Neurology at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. He is interested in the clinical and cognitive neuroscience of memory and memory disorders with a specific focus on neurological diseases associated with hippocampal dysfunction, e.g. autoimmune and viral encephalitis, transient global amnesia and temporal lobe epilepsy.
Aylin Ak
Research Assistant
Aylin is a medical student at Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin and joined the lab in 2023 as a research assistant. She is involved in recruiting patients and planning follow-up visits for the autoimmunencephalitis cohort. She also assists in acquiring MRI data and clinical data managment.
Maria Alcobendas Liern
PhD student (SFB 1315, PIs Ploner/Finke)
Maria studied Biochemistry (BSc) in Madrid and Neuroscience (MSc) in Freiburg and Leipzig. She joined the lab in November 2022 as part of the SFB 1315 „memory consolidation“ project. She is interested in the contextual modulation of spatial memory consolidation, with a special focus on the role of the hippocampus and neocortex and their relative contribution over time. For that, she uses behavioral, EEG and fMRI approaches and works with neurological patients and healthy subjects.
Frederik Bartels
Post-Doc
Frederik studied medicine at Heidelberg University, Université de Lausanne, University College London, and Columbia University. For his doctoral thesis he examined molecular mechanisms of glioblastoma invasiveness at the German Cancer Research Center. Currently, he is training as a neurologist at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and working as a clinician scientist in our lab. He is interested in neuroimmunological diseases, including autoimmune encephalitis, antibody-mediated and paraneoplastic neurological disorders.
Conrad Blau
Research intern
Conrad studied Cognitive Science (B.Sc.) and Psychology (B.A.) at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He enrolled in the Berlin School of Mind and Brain Master’s Program in 2022, joining the lab shortly afterward. Currently, his research explores the intersection of naturalistic behavior in virtual reality, imaging markers, and neurological disease, with a focus on spatial memory deficits found in subtypes of autoimmune encephalitis.
Ole Böken
Post-Doc
Ole studied psychology (Mag. Rer. Nat.) in Vienna and completed the Middle European Interdisciplinary Master’s Programme in Cognitive Sciences in both Vienna and Ljubljana. For his doctoral thesis at Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, he conducted systems-level functional decoding of brain areas, including the thalamus and the intraparietal sulcus. He joined the lab in March 2023 to work on the SAPIENCE project. His primary interests lie in structure-function relationships and connectomics in both healthy and diseased brains.
Annalisa Bozem
Research Assistant
After studying Psychology (BSc) in Maastricht and Surabaya, Annalisa pursued her Master’s in Theory and Research in Psychology (MSc) in Leuven, specializing in clinical neuropsychology. She joined the lab in August 2021, bringing with her a strong interest in the field of longitudinal structural MRI analysis in Anti-NMDA Receptor Encephalitis. Additionally, she has conducted research on the long-term cognitive outcomes of patients following Sars-CoV-2 infection using a combination of neuropsychological testing and MRI scans.
Guido Cammà
Research Collaborator
Guido studied Medicine (MD) in Rome and Porto, and Cognitive Neuroscience (MSc) in Utrecht and Berlin. He joined the Lab in 2023 and focuses on a longitudinal study on Autoimmune Encephalitis, for which he performs analysis of structural MRI and evaluates clinical scores.
Omar Chishti
PhD Student
Omar studied biomedical engineering at Yale (BSc) and is currently a fast-track PhD student at the Max Planck School of Cognition. He has a research background in structural connectivity, brain atlases, language organization, and epilepsy. He joined the lab in September 2023 for his first lab rotation.
Karla General
Research Assistant
Karla is currently completing her master’s in psychology at Humboldt University Berlin and joined our lab in January 2023 as a Research Assistant. She contributes to various research activities, including conducting MRI scans and administering neuropsychological tests as well as VR experiments. Karla is also involved in recruitment of study participants and data management.
Juri Habicht
Post-doc
After working as a paramedic, Juri pursued medical studies at Brandenburg Medical School (MHB), Zürich (USZ) and in Guatemala. He completed a research stay at the University of Minnesota in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, USA. Currently, he works in the Neurology Department at Charité, where his research focuses on clinical outcomes and associated factors in patients with neuroimmunological diseases, including autoimmune encephalitis, with a particular emphasis on advancing diagnostic approaches.
Nele Hanko
Research Assistant
Nele is a psychology student at Freie University Berlin and joined the lab in 2024 as a Research Assistant. She is involved in various research activities, including administering neuropsychological tests and conducting MRI scans, as well as recruiting study participants and data management.
Tim Hartung
Post-Doc
Tim is investigating imaging markers of neuroimmunological diseases using methods such as resting-state and quantitative MRI. Coming from a background in psycho-oncology and clinical neurology, he has a keen interest in epidemiology and psychometrics. Tim holds degrees in psychology and philosophy (M.A., University of Cambridge) and medicine (M.D., Leipzig University).
Deetje Iggena
Post-Doc (SFB 1315, PIs Finke/Ploner)
After studying medicine and working as a doctor in the department of Neurology, Deetje started working in the SFB 1315 in January 2019. For her doctoral thesis, she examined how lifestyle-interventions modulate hippocampal neurogenesis and spatial memory in mice. Now she is working on human spatial memory consolidation in VR- and real-life-settings.
Darko Komnenić
PhD student
After studying psychology in Belgrade, Darko attended the master’s program at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain, writing his thesis in our lab. His thesis was on the relationship between depression and changes in the structure and function of hippocampus in patients suffering from neuromyelitis optica. His PhD project expands on this, looking at other changes in brains of neuromyelitis optica patients, with a particular focus on comparing patients with different antibody profiles.
Sophie Elena Kray-Niemczyk
Doctoral candidate
Sophie joined the lab in 2020 while studying Medicine at Charité to pursue her PhD. After completing her studies in 2022, she continues her research on the cognitive long-term effects in patients with autoimmune encephalitis, particularly in NMDAR-related cases. Her work utilizes a VR-based protocol, the imVMT, to investigate visuospatial memory changes in affected patients. Besides that, Sophie is currently training in general medicine and enjoys building bridges between clinical care and research.
Moritz Johannes Krill
Post-doc
Moritz studied medicine (Munich, Berlin, Shanghai) and is currently training as a neurologist at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. His doctoral thesis investigated the molecular mechanisms of the innate immune system in kidney disease. He joined the lab in 2024 to explore his interest in neuroinflammatory diseases, especially autoantibody-mediated disorders. Besides research, Moritz is also a passionate teacher and has given lectures to medical students and master’s students.
Stephan Krohn
Post-Doc
Stephan studied medicine (Berlin, Málaga, Montevideo) and cognitive neuroscience (Berlin, Jaén) and joined the lab in 2018. He is particularly interested in computational methods to improve the understanding of brain disorders. His projects explore cognitive assessment with immersive Virtual Reality and investigate brain topology and functional dynamics in MRI by combining approaches from information theory, network science, and complexity analysis.
Joseph Kuchling
Post-Doc
After studying at Medical School - Charité University Medicine Berlin, and completing doctoral studies on ultrahigh-field MRI in multiple sclerosis, Joseph joined the lab with an eager interest in the application of diffusion tensor imaging and advanced MRI techniques in neuroinflammatory diseases.
Leonie Maier
Research assistant & PhD student
Leonie is a medical student at Charité Berlin and joined our lab in 2019 as a Research Assistant. She is involved in different projects of the lab as she is coordinating, recruiting and testing participants for our neuroimaging studies. She is interested in exploring new methods of understanding human brain functions and works with Virtual Reality Tasks for her dissertation.
Patrizia Maier
PhD student (SFB 1315, PIs Finke/Ploner)
Patrizia studied Psychology in Freiburg, Copenhagen and Berlin. She uses 3D navigation tasks to investigate the temporal dynamics of spatial learning and memory consolidation in neurological patients (behaviorally) and healthy subjects (fMRI). She started working in the SFB 1315 “Memory Consolidation” in October 2018.
Maron Mantwill
Post-Doc
Maron studied Philosophy, Psychology and Neuroscience in Jena, Warwick and Berlin. He joined the lab in 2016 and is interested in single-subject connectivity analysis, resting-state functional connectivity and machine-learning based prediction in neurological diseases.
Greta Melega
Post-Doc (SFB 1315, PIs Finke/Ploner)
After studying psychology and neuroscience at the University of Bologna (Italy), Greta completed her doctoral studies at the University of East Anglia (UK) working on declarative memory changes in ageing using behavioural and neuroimaging techniques (EEG and fMRI). Now she joined the SFB 1315 group to work on spatial memory consolidation in neurological patients and healthy control by combining VR, behavioural and EEG techniques.
Lydia Möws
Research Assistant and Doctoral Candidate
Lydia is a medical student at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and joined the lab in August 2022 for her doctoral project. Her focus is the interface between neurology and oncology, which she explores by performing neuropsychological testings with patients before and after having received CAR-T-cell therapy.
Tobias Oelgeschläger
Research Assistant
Tobias studies psychology at Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. He joined our lab in July 2022 as a Research Assistant. He is involved in recruiting participants, data management, administering neuropsychological tests and assisting with MRI scans.
Sophia Rekers
PhD student
Sophia studied psychology in Berlin and does her PhD at the Berlin School of Mind. Her interests are neuropsychology and clinical and cognitive neuroscience. Currently, she researches how virtual environments and mixed reality can be used to study, diagnose, and treat spatial navigation impairment in acquired brain injury.
Amy Romanello
PhD student
Amy holds degrees in Behavioral Neuroscience (BSc) and Medical Neuroscience (MSc). She joined the lab in 2019 and currently investigates functional connectivity in multiple sclerosis and methodological approaches to assess brain signal complexity. Amy is interested in using computational methods to study altered network dynamics and states of consciousness in patients with neuropsychiatric disease and pharmacologically-induced models.
Joy Sarow
Research Assistant
After completing her bachelor’s in psychology, Joy is currently enrolled in the Cognitive Science – Embodied Cognition master’s program at University of Potsdam. In November 2023, she joined the Cognitive Neurology Lab as a Research Assistant. Her activities include, inter alia, the administration of neuropsychological tests, conducting VR experiments, recruting of study participants and data management.
Lars Schlenker
PhD student
Lars studied Psychology (Enschede, Budapest) and Cognitive Neuropsychology (Amsterdam) and joined the Lab for his PhD in October 2021. He investigates the neural bases of cognitive dysfunction in patients with post-COVID syndrome, with a particular focus on white matter integrity and tractography analyses. Currently, he is involved in a study on the longitudinal neuropsychological and MRI changes in post-COVID patients.
Katia Schwichtenberg
Medical student
Katia is a medical student at Charité University Berlin and joined the lab in December 2020. She is currently working on her medical doctoral project investigating long-term cognitive outcomes in patients after Sars-CoV-2 infection via neuropsychological testing and magnetic resonance imaging.
Hannah Tenenbaum
Medical Student and Doctoral Candidate
Hannah is a medical student at Charité University Berlin and joined the lab in August 2023 as a doctoral candidate. She is interested in clinical and cognitive neuroscience. At the moment she is investiagting long-term cognitive outcomes in patients after autoimmune encephalitis via clinical data and magnetic resonance imaging analysis.
Katharina Wurdack
Post-Doc, SFB1315 (PIs Ploner/Finke)
With a background in clinical neurology and diffusion tensor MRI analyses, Katharina investigates imaging markers of cognitive change in neuroinflammatory diseases. Her special interest lies in combining different MRI modalities, notably diffusion tensor imaging and quantitative MRI. She studied medicine at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and Université de Bordeaux and joined the lab in 2022.
Selina Yogeshwar
PhD student
Selina studied Neuroscience at University College London and joined the lab for her PhD in 2020. Her research predominantly focuses on the pathophysiology of anti-IgLON5 disease, studying how functional autoimmunity is genetically predisposed and mediated, as well as how the brains of patients pathologically change over the course of this disease.
Wei Zhao
Medical PhD student
Wei completed his masters degree in Neurology at Anhui Medical University (China). He joined the lab in December 2020. His research interests lie in using multiple neuroimaging techniques to explore pathophysiological mechanisms of nervous system diseases. His current doctoral projects focus on fractal dimension and quantitative multi-parameter mapping.
Alumni
Graham Cooper
Graham studied Psychology and Neuropsychology at the Universities of Bath and Edinburgh. He joined the lab in October 2017 and his PhD research project involved applying quantitative magnetic resonance imaging techniques to improve diagnosis and better understand pathological processes in multiple sclerosis.
Hariharan Hallock
Harry completed his PhD at the University of Sydney in 2017. He joined the lab soon after, continuing his research on cognitive interventions, specifically developing and testing remote cognitive assessments and training for MS and concussion. In 2020 Harry joined DNV GL in Oslo and is exploring the need for governance for AI in healthcare.
Steffen Häseli
Research Assistant
Steffen is a medical student at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin was a Research Assistant in the lab 01-12/2023. He was involved in recruiting study participants, conducting neuropsychological testing and MRI scans, as well as in data management. Steffen holds a degree in molecular nutrition (M.Sc., FSU Jena).
Josephine Heine
Josephines research focus within the lab lay in tracing the neuronal signatures of memory deficits using structural and functional connectivity MRI. Her research focused on neuroimmunological diseases, such as autoimmune encephalitis and multiple sclerosis. Beyond that, she explored ultra-high field MR imaging (7T), metamemory, and health-related quality of life in neurological disorders. Josephine holds degrees in neuroscience (MSc, Freie Universitt zu Berlin) and psychology (BSc, Humboldt-Universitt zu Berlin & University of California, San Diego).
Sara Eileen Holm
Sara investigated acquired musical anhedonia after focal brain damage with Prof. Christoph Ploner and Prof. Alexander Schmidt as a PhD student. Beforehand she obtained a master’s degree in Systematic Musicology with focus on Neuromusicology at the University of Hamburg. Sara performed cognitive assessments in MS patients in cooperation with the NeuroCure Clinical Research Center and also worked on the GENERATE database, a platform that bundles information on different forms of autoimmune encephalitis.
Pia Klabunn
Pia joined our lab from May 2021 until May 2023 as Research Assistant while completing her master’s in psychology at Humboldt University Berlin. She is interested in psychiatric covariates of cognitive decline as well as functional and structural MRI. Pia now follows a PhD program at RWTH Aachen.
Amit Lampit
Amit is a clinical neuroscientist (PhD Sydney 2014) and completed part of his post-doc time in our lab. He specialises in clinical trials of cognitive training across the lifespan, development of cognitive intervention technologies and research synthesis. He also holds a CR Roper senior research fellow position at University of Melbourne and co-lead the CITE Group at the Academic Unit for Psychiatry of Old Age.
Anna Pajkert
Anna studied psychology at HU Berlin and UAM Poznan (Poland). She joined the lab in February 2016 and completed her PhD in summer 2020. Her research focused on human memory and plasticity processes.
Nina von Schwanenflug
Nina studied Psychology and Neuroscience at the universities of Saarbrcken and Dresden. For her dissertation, she applied time-resolved functional connectivity analysis to explore the temporal variability of large-scale brain network activity in autoimmune encephalitis and multiple sclerosis. She completed her PhD in 2022.