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Charlotte Rae

Graduate Student, Executive Processes

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Charlotte Rae

Contact details

E-mail address: charlotte.rae@mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)1223 355294
Fax: +44 (0)1223 359062
Address: MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit,
15 Chaucer Road,
Cambridge,
CB2 7EF

Research areas

  • My particular research interest is in combining structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to investigate how the structure of one's brain can impact upon function.
  • In my PhD, supervised by James Rowe, I am using both diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and functional MRI (fMRI) to study the brain networks related to selection and inhibition of voluntary action.
  • The process of deciding to act, and then stopping or changing your actions, relies on the prefrontal cortex.
  • I use fMRI to investigate how the prefrontal cortex carries out these functions in healthy subjects, and also in Parkinson's disease patients - a group that has documented impairments in generating and also inhibiting voluntary actions.
  • I also use DTI to map the structure of these networks important for control and inhibition of voluntary action, in both healthy populations, and Parkinson's disease patients.

Publications

Chen JL, Rae C, Watkins KE (2011) "Learning to play a melody: An fMRI study examining the formation of auditory-motor associations." Neuroimage (epub ahead of print)

Background

Before starting at the CBU, I completed a BA in Experimental Psychology and MSc in Neuroscience at the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford. Whilst there I worked with Dr Kate Watkins & Dr Joyce Chen on auditory-motor interactions in novice musicians, and also with Dr Mark Baxter and Dr Paula Croxson, with whom I mapped the default mode network in humans and macaques using DTI, and worked on projects investigating a macaque model of memory.