Dr Magdalena Chechlacz PhD

Honorary Research Fellow

School of Psychology

Contact details

Telephone +44 (0)121 411 8689

Email m.chechlacz.1@bham.ac.uk

School of Psychology
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

About

I am a cellular and molecular neurobiologist by training but I have made career change from neurobiology to cognitive neuropsychology and swapped lab bench with microscope for MRI scanner.

Qualifications

MSc Biology (1996), PhD Biology (2002), PhD Psychology (2012)

Biography

I initially trained and carried out a PhD in cellular and molecular biology (2002). After working as biologist I decided on a career change to a more human-oriented science. To gain formal training, I completed a second PhD in psychology (2012) at the University of Birmingham. After completing my PhD in Birmingham I have taken on a postdoctoral post at the Cognitive Neuropsychology and Neuroscience Lab, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford. I am an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Psychology, University of Birmingham.

Research

My research is concerned with understanding the structural and functional organization of visuospatial attention in the human brain, using data from brain imaging performed on brain injured patients with a variety of visuospatial deficits as well as on healthy controls. I am also interested in understanding the mechanisms and in predicting functional recovery after lesioning to the neural networks supporting visuospatial attention.

Publications

  1. Chechlacz M, Terry A, Rotshtein P, Demeyere N, Bickerton W-L, Humphreys GW (in press). Common and distinct neural mechanisms of visual and tactile extinction: A large scale VBM study in sub-acute stroke. NeuroImage: Clinical
  2. Utz S, Humphreys GW, Chechlacz M (2013). Parietal substrates for dimensional effects in visual search: evidence from lesion-symptom mapping. BRAIN 136: 751-760.
  3. Chechlacz M, Rotshtein P, Hansen PC, Deb S, Riddoch JM, Humphreys GW (2013). The central role of the temporo-parietal junction and the superior longitudinal fasciculus in supporting multi-item competition: evidence from lesion-symptom mapping of extinction. Cortex 49: 487-506.
  4. Woodbridge R, Chechlacz M, Humphreys GW,Demeyere N (2013). Neuro-anatomical correlates  of a number bisection bias: A neuropsychological voxel-based morphometry study. NeuroImage: Clinical 2: 143-150.
  5. Chechlacz M, Rotshtein P, Roberts KL, BickertonW-L, Lau JKL, Humphreys GW (2012). Acute versus chronic prognosis of allocentric versus egocentric neglect symptoms: evidence from clinical scans. PLoS ONE 7(11): e47821.
  6. Roberts KL, Lau JKL, Chechlacz M, Humphreys GW (2012). Spatial and temporal attention deficits following brain injury: A neuro-anatomical decomposition of the temporal order judgement task. Cogn. Neuropsych. 29: 300-324.
  7. Chechlacz M, Rotshtein P, Hansen PC, Deb S, Riddoch JM, Humphreys GW (2012). The neural underpinnings of simultanagnosia: disconnecting the visuospatial attention network. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 24: 718-735.
  8. Chechlacz M, Rotshtein P, Humphreys GW (2012). Neuro-anatomical dissections of unilateral visual neglect symptoms: ALE meta-analysis of lesion-symptom mapping. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 6(230): 1-20.
  9. Sui J, Chechlacz M, Humphreys GW (2012). Automatic and task-based prioritization of the self: Neuropsychological evidence for distinct and common neural substrates after damage to the right frontal and temporal cortex. Cognition 122: 150-162.
  10. Chechlacz M, Rotshtein P, Bickerton W-L, Hansen PC, Deb S, Humphreys GW (2010). Separating grey and white matter substrates of allocentric from egocentric neglect: Distinct cortical sites and common white matter disconnections. Cogn. Neuropsychol. 27: 277-303.
  11. Riddoch MJ, Chechlacz M, Mevorach C, Mavritsaki E, Allen HA, Humphreys GW (2010). The neural mechanisms of visual selection: The view from neuropsychology. Ann.N.Y.Acad.Sci. 1191: 156-181.
  12. Chechlacz M, Rotshtein P, Klamer S, Porubská K, Higgs S, Booth D, Fritsche A, Preissl H, Abele H, Birbaumer N, Nouwen A (2009). Diabetes dietary management alters responses to food pictures in brain regions associated with motivation and emotion: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Diabetologia 52: 524-533.
  13. Bielas SL, Serneo FF, Chechlacz M, Deerinck TJ, Perkins GA, Allen PB, Ellisman MH, Joseph Gleeson JG (2007) Spinophilin facilitates dephosphorylation of doublecortin by PP1 to mediate microtubule bundling at the axonal wrist. Cell 129: 579-591.
  14. Neema M, Navarro-Quiroga I, Chechlacz M, Gilliams-Francis K, Liu J, Lamonice K, Lin SL, Naegele JR (2005) DNA damage and nonhomologous end joining in excitotoxicity: neuroprotective role of DNA-PKcs in kainic acid-induced seizures. Hippocampus 15: 1057-1071.
  15. Chechlacz M, Gleeson JG (2003) Is mental retardation a defect of synapse structure and function? Pediatr. Neurol. 29: 11-17.
  16. Chechlacz M, Naegele JR (2002) Genetics of childhood disorders: XL. Stem cell research, part 4: neural horticulture. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 41: 882-885.
  17. Chechlacz M, Vemuri CM, Naegele JR (2001) Role of DNA-dependent protein kinase in neuronal survival. J. Neurochem. 78: 141-154.
  18. Niewiadomska G, Wyrzykowska J, Chechlacz M (2000) Does senile impairment of cholinergic system in rats concern only disturbances in cholinergic phenotype or the progressive degeneration of neuronal cell bodies? Acta Biochim. Pol. 47: 313-330.
  19. Chechlacz M, Michalik J, Cymborowski B (1998) Suboptimal temperature–dependent changes in the brain development and activity in Galleria mellonella larvae. Archives of Insect Biochem. Physiol. 38: 66-73.

Back to top