Andreea Diaconescu
After studying vision neuroscience with Dr. Hugh Wilson at York University in Toronto, I joined Dr. Randy McIntosh for my PhD at the Rotman Research Institute affiliated with University of Toronto. Under Dr. McIntosh's supervision, I examined how crossmodal, audiovisual associations change with healthy aging. During my graduate training, I also had the opportunity to collaborate with other researchers worldwide on a variety of neuroimaging and neuropharmacology projects investigating how functional connectivity analyses can be combined with pharmacological manipulations in order to model the role of specific neurotransmitters, including dopamine, in both healthy and diseased brain function. Currently, I am interested in studying how people learn to predict the intentions of others while playing an interactive game. Similar to my graduate work, I would also like to examine the role of dopamine in such aspects of social learning.
Selected key publications
Diaconescu AO, Alain C, McIntosh AR (2011) Modality-dependent “what” and “where” preparatory processes in auditory and visual systems. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 23: 1609-1623.[PubMed]
Diaconescu AO, Jensen J, Menon M, Kapur S, McIntosh AR (2011) Aberrant effective connectivity in schizophrenia patients during appetitive conditioning. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 4:239.[PubMed]
Diaconescu AO, Kramer E, Hermann C, Ma Y, Dhawan V, Chaly T, Eidelberg D, McIntosh AR, Smith GS (2010) Distinct functional networks associated with improvement of affective symptoms and cognitive function during citalopram treatment in geriatric depression. Human Brain Mapping. In press.[PubMed]
Diaconescu AO, Menon M, Jensen J, Kapur S, McIntosh AR (2010) Dopamine-induced changes in neural network patterns supporting aversive conditioning. Brain Research 1313: 143-161.[PubMed]
Diaconescu AO, Kovacevic N, McIntosh AR (2008) Modality-independent processes in cued motor preparation revealed by cortical potentials. NeuroImage 42: 1255-1265.[PubMed]
Wilson HR, Diaconescu A (2006) Learning alters local face space geometry. Vision Research 46: 4143-4151.[PubMed]
