Barbara Dillenburger Email & Phone Number

Cologne Area, Germany

Medical Writer/ Online Redaktion DeutschesGesundheitsPortal: neueste Forschungserkenntnisse mit Relevanz für verschiedenste schwere Erkrankungen, medizinwissenschaftlich recherchiert und für Patienten, Angehörige und sonstig Interessierte verständlich geschrieben. Mein Schwerpunkt liegt auf neurologischen Erkrankungen wie Depressionen und der Bipolaren Störung, Migräne und Demenzen wie der Alzheimererkrankung, sowie zukünftig die altersbedingte Makuladegeneration.-----Medical writer & online editor for DeutschesGesundheitsPortal: the latest medical research with relevance for and applicable by patients. Thoroughly researched and written exclusively for (german-speaking) patients, family, carers, or those interested in a specific sickness. I focus on neurological issues such as depression (uni- and bipolar), migraine, dementia/Alzheimer's disease, and, coming soon, age-related macula degeneration.

Cologne Area, Germany

Using our expertise in perception, we are developing a method and device to detect vision defects. Status: patent is pending, looking for funds. With Kai Schreiber, we've programmed a mobile prototype (Matlab, MacOS X, final debugging stage) to conduct eye tracking and perception testing. Testing for providing a proof of concept will start soon.

Supporting the setup of a new study on eye movements and perception at City University by writing and providing code for first experiments and analysis (Matlab, Psychtoolbox, Eyelink-Toolbox).

My projects at the MPI for Neurological/Metabolism Research have centered on eye movements, specifically saccadic adaptation, and perceptual consequences of such adaptation. As throughout my years of research, measuring and understanding perceptual processes were the overarching focus of these studies.During this time I set up eye movement testing equipment, developed basic matlab procedures for running tests and analyzing the data, and trained incoming students in using the setup. In addition I managed our ethics protocol writing, submission and defense to allow fMRI, psychophysical and eye movement studies in human subjects.For an example, please see one exemplary poster (2014).

In the lab of Prof. Limin Chen, I studied thalamic and cortical processing of painful heat in comparison to innocuous heat or touch. We studied this processes in anesthetized non-human primates by means of high field fMRI (9.4T), intrinsic optical imaging, single-unit physiology and used histological methods to confirm the identity of thalamic and cortical structures that were functionally identified to be involved in the processing of painful heat.In addition, I organized the setting-up a vertical magnet (4.7T) system to study perception and processing of tactile and visual stimuli in awake NHP. With two colleagues, we trained animals, installed and modified setup components for stimulation and observation of the animals in collaboration with the Vanderbilt/Peabody workshop. In addition to development of stimulus paradigms and collaborating on interfacing hardware (mostly with Labview) I focused on the writing of ethics protocols and standard operating procedures. Lastly, I collaborated in studies on spinal cord injuries and recovery in NHP, with Huixin Qi; during these studies I was involved in fMRI scans at 9.4T before and after lesion, optical imaging, and single unit mapping of somatotopic cortices.

I worked with Prof. Anna Roe, studying visual perception and processing, primarily by means of psychophysics in humans, and single unit recording in NHP. My research focus was on illusory contour processing and interaction with real contours in visual areas V1 and V2. I also collaborated with Dr. Peter Kaskan in optical imaging studies, looking at functional domain organization in visual cortices V1, V2, and MT in new world monkeys.

Dr./Phd, Biology

During my PhD thesis on visual perception of illusory contours, I designed and programmed experimental testing software, using C/C++.

Diplom/Masters, Biology

Visual perception, psychophysics, color vision, cone ratios in humans