Ciara McCabe
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+44 (0) 118 378 5450
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Professor of Neuroscience, Psychopharmacology and Mental Health & University Research Fellow
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Director: Neuroscience of Reward Group (NRG).
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Director of Reading Scholars Programme in Psychology, ϲʿ¼.
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Associate Editor, Frontiers in Psychiatry, Mood and Anxiety Disorders Section.
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University Research Fellow
Areas of interest
Professor Ciara McCabe examines the human reward experience using behavioural techniques and brain imaging. Ciara did her PhD with Professor Leslie on the effects of anti-anxiety drugs in animal models in the Psychology Department at the University of Ulster. She did her first post doc with Professor Nader in primate models of drug addiction in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at Wake Forest University, NC, USA. Ciara then did a second post-doc with Professor Rolls on the human reward response using neuroimaging in the Department of Experimental Psychology at Oxford University and then worked as a Research Fellow with Professor Harmer and Professor Cowan on the human reward response in psychiatric disorders, using neuroimaging and psychopharmacological challenges, in the Department of Psychiatry at Oxford University.
Postgraduate supervision
Current Post Docs and PhD students: Dr Hee Kyoung Ko, Xueqing Ma, Phoenix Byrne, Angad Sahni, Sena Demir, Katie Diab
Past PhD students: Siyabend Kaya, Hanxin Zhang, Soni Chahal, Rebecca Watson, Anna-Lena Frey, Zola Dean, Alex Antonesei, Ewelina Rzepa, Felicity Cowdrey and Anna Nakamura visiting PhD from Tokyo University
Teaching
- Lecturer in cognition, learning and neuroscience
- MSc and BSc project supervisor.
Research centres and groups
Ciara leads the Neuroscience of Reward Group (NRG) at the ϲʿ¼. Using neurocognitive approaches NRG examines how reward processing is related to depression and in particular the symptom of anhedonia and its treatment. NRG uses several different techniques to examine reward function such as qualitative, behavioural, neuroimaging and psychopharmacological approaches.Research projects
Funding: Professor McCabe has received funding from the Medical Research Council (MRC), Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC), a ϲʿ¼ Research Fellowship, The British Science Association (BSA) and industry collaborators such as GWPharma Ltd, EPC flavouring Ltd and Juneobiont PTE. Ltd.Academic qualifications
- BSc Honours Psychology, Queens University Belfast, 1998
- PhD Psychology, University of Ulster, 2003
- Fellow of Higher Education Authority (FHEA), 2015.
Awards and honours
- 2022: Finalist in the Research Engagement and Impact Awards, ϲʿ¼
- 2019: Invited by the Royal Society to give flash talk to the 3rd UK-Japan Frontiers of Science Symposium “Computational Brain Modelling and Brain-computer Interfaces”, Chiba, Japan.
- 2017: Invited to give "New Talent Talk" from Lundbeck Foundation, The Brain Prize Meeting, “Rewarding Neuroscience” Copenhagen.
- 2015: Senior Non-Clinical Psychopharmacology Award: The British Association of Psychopharmacology, Bristol.
- 2015: In Vivo Award: British Association for Psychopharmacology, Bristol.
- 2014: In Vivo Award: British Association for Psychopharmacology, Cambridge.
- 2012: Rafaelsen Investigator Award: The International College of Neuropsychopharmacology, Stockholm.
- 2010: Fellowship Award: European College of Neuropsychopharmacology, Amsterdam.
- 2008: Eli Lilly (Industry) Fellowship Award: presented at the British Association for Psychopharmacology, Oxford.