Translational Neuroimaging Marburg

At the moment I am a postdoc in the DFG funded multi-center study FOR2107, which aims at investigating neurobiological markers of affective disorders. Since I started my Master’s studies in Cognitive and Integrative Systems Neuroscience at TNM lab in 2014, my personal research interests encompass the neural correlates of fear conditioning and the development of anxiety disorders. My goal is to examine functional and effective connectivity to identify the mechanisms of learning during the acquisition and extinction of fear, which are associated with the etiology of anxiety disorders. In September 2020 I finished my Ph.D. on effective connectivity analyses regarding audiovisual integration of gestures and language in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. During that time, I advanced my expertise on connectivity analyses, such as Dynamic Causal Modelling, to be used in translational research questions.

Education:

10/2016 – 09/2020	Dr. rer. nat. (Neuroscience)	Department of Psychiatry, University of Marburg
10/2014 – 09/2016	M.Sc. (Cognitive and Integrative Systems Neuroscience)	University of Marburg
10/2011 – 09/2014	B.Sc. (Biology)	University of Marburg

Research projects:

FOR2107 / MACS-ANXIETY

PROTECT-AD

TAM

Awards and honors:

05/2017 – 04/2020	Ph.D. scholarship	Marburg University Research Academy (MARA)
06/2017	Travel grant	Marburg International Doctorate, Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM) (Vancouver, CAN)
11/2016	Poster award	Robert Sommer Award Symposium (Giessen, GER)
06/2016	Grant for project expenses	Medizinstiftung (Marburg, GER); project title: “Simultaneous EEG-fMRI investigation of the neural and neurophysiological changes underlying conditioning and extinction in patients with anxiety disorders”, 2000 €

Research interests:

Fear conditioning	Anxiety disorders
Connectivity analyses	Schizophrenia
Functional MRI

Scientific expertise:

fMRI	EEG	Psychophysiology
Matlab	Simultaneous EEG-fMRI	CONN-toolbox
SPSS	SPM	Eyetracking
Dynamic Causal Modelling	Presentation®	BIDS

Publications:

1. Wroblewski, A., Yang, Y., Ridderbusch, IC., Hollandt, M., Pietzner, A., Szeska, C., Lotze, M., Wittchen, H.-U., Heinig, I., Pittig, A., Arolt, V., Kölkebeck, K., Rothkopf, CA., Adolph, D., Margraf, J., Lueken, U., Pauli, P., Herrmann, MJ., Winkler, M., Ströhle. A., Dannlowski, U., Kircher, T., Hamm, A., Straube, B.^*, Richter, J.^* (in prep). Sometimes I feel the fear of uncertainty stinging clear: How Intolerance of Uncertainty and Trait Anxiety impact fear acquisition, extinction and the return of fear.
2. Wroblewski, A., Sperl, MFJ., Mueller, M., Mueller, EM., Straube, B. (in prep). Temporal Development of Human Prefrontal Theta Oscillations during Fear Acquisition and Extinction.
3. Ridderbusch, IC., Wroblewski, A., Yang, Y., Wittchen, H.-U., Ströhle. A., Hamm, A., Richter, J., Arolt, V., Margraf, J., Herrmann, M., Kircher, T., Straube, B. (2021). Neural adaptation of cingulate and insular activity during delayed fear extinction: A replicable pattern across assessment sites and repeated measurements. NeuroImage 237, 118157.
4. Sperl, MFJ., Wroblewski, A., Mueller, M., Straube, B., Mueller, EM. (2021). Learning Dynamics of Electrophysiological Brain Signals During Human Fear Conditioning. NeuroImage 226, 117569.
5. Hollandt, M., Wroblewski, A., Yang, Y., Ridderbusch, IC., Kircher, T., Hamm, A., Straube, B., Richter, J. (2020). Facilitating translational science in anxiety disorders by adjusting extinction training in the laboratory to exposure-based therapy procedures. Translational Psychiatry 10, 110.
6. Wroblewski, A., He, Y., Straube, B. (2020). Dynamic Causal Modelling suggests impaired effective connectivity in patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders during gesture-speech integration. Schizophrenia Research 216, 175-183.
7. Straube, B., Wroblewski, A., Jansen, A., He, Y. (2018). The connectivity signature of co-speech gesture integration: The superior temporal sulcus modulates connectivity between areas related to visual gesture and auditory speech processing. NeuroImage 181, 539-549.