Marina Charquero Ballester

I am currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Hedonia Transnational Research Group, based both at the University of Oxford and Aarhus University. My project focuses on the various ways in which war and trauma can affect the brain; in particular, I am interested in understanding how  the way we process stress can render us more likely to develop a neuropsychiatric disorder in the future, as well as the neural underpinnings that are associated with how we recover from these conditions. To study these processes I use whole-brain structural and functional connectivity approaches derived from neuroimaging techniques such as fMRI. 

Before completing my DPhil at the University of Oxford investigating the impact of stress and trauma on the brain, I worked as a research assistant at the Oxford Centre for Functional MRI of the Brain. There I was involved in several projects investigating neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington's and Parkinson's disease. Additionally, I was involved in projects on healthy development and ageing as part of the Human Connectome Project. Previously, I had graduated from a Research Masters in Cognitive and Clinical Neurosciences at Maastricht University, The Netherlands.