Månsson Laboratory
Månsson Laboratory
Karolinska Institutet
Karolinska Institutet
Things we like to do
The promise of investigating neural variability in psychiatric disorders
Postdoc Konstantinos Tsikonofilos latest review paper is now out!
Tsikonofilos, K., Kumar, A., Ampatzis, K., Garrett, D.D., Månsson, K. N. T. (In press). The promise of investigating neural variability in psychiatric disorders. Biological Psychiatry. https://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S0006-3223(25)00102-7/fulltext
The researcher's guide to selecting biomarkers in mental health studies
Clinical mental health researchers may understandably struggle with how to incorporate biological assessments in clinical research. The options are numerous and are described in a vast and complex body of literature. Here we provide guidelines to assist mental health researchers seeking to include biological measures in their studies.
Verhoeven, J. E., Wolkowitz, O. M., Barr Satz, I., Conklin, Q., Lamers, F., Lavebratt, C., Lin, J., Lindqvist, D., Mayer, S. E., Melas, P. A., Milaneschi, Y., Picard, M., Rampersaud, R., Rasgon, N., Ridout, K., Söderberg Veibäck, G., Trumpff, C., Tyrka, A. R., Watson, K., … Han, L. & Månsson, K. N. T. (2024). The researcher’s guide to selecting biomarkers in mental health studies. BioEssays, 46(10), e2300246. https://doi.org/10.1002/bies.202300246
Moment-to-moment brain signal variability reliably predicts psychiatric treatment outcome
Månsson, K. N. T., Waschke, L., Manzouri, A., Furmark, T., Fischer, H., & Garrett, D. D. (2022). Moment-to-moment brain signal variability reliably predicts psychiatric treatment outcome. Biological Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2021.09.026
Presentation on YouTube, click here!
Honorable Mention from Biological Psychiatry's Somerfeld-Ziskind Research Award
We are very honored to be short-listed for the 2023 Somerfeld-Ziskind Research Award. Thanks!
Månsson, K. N. T., Waschke, L., Manzouri, A., Furmark, T., Fischer, H., & Garrett, D. D. (2022). Moment-to-moment brain signal variability reliably predicts psychiatric treatment outcome. Biological Psychiatry. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2021.09.026
Investigate rapid brain plasticity using structural magnetic resonance imaging
Olivo, G., Lövdén, M., Manzouri, A., Terlau, L., Jenner, B., Jafari, A., Petersson, S., Li, T.-Q., Fischer, H., & Månsson, K. N. T. (2022). Estimated Gray Matter Volume Rapidly Changes after a Short Motor Task. Cerebral Cortex. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhab488
Månsson, K. N. T., Cortes, D. S., Manzouri, A., Li, T.-Q., Hau, S., & Fischer, H. (2020). Viewing Pictures Triggers Rapid Morphological Enlargement in the Human Visual Cortex. Cerebral Cortex , 30(3), 851–857. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhz131
The illustration was featured as a cover image in Cerebral Cortex, march 2020. Illustration by Staffan Lager.Team
Kristoffer N T Månsson, PhD
Principal investigator, Associate Professor at Karolinska Institutet
Previous academic positions
- Visiting faculty, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA (PI: Tor Wager)
- Post doc, Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, Berlin/London; Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany (PI: Douglas D Garrett)
- Post doc, Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Sweden (PI: Håkan Fischer)
- Study Director, Psychiatry Research School, Centre for Psychiatry Research, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden (2017-2020)
Konstantinos Tsikonofilos, PhD
Postdoc
Dr Tsikonofilos holds a Diploma in Applied Mathematical and Physical Sciences from the National Technical University of Athens, an MSc in Biomedical Engineering, and a PhD in Bioengineering from Imperial College London, UK. With expertise in statistics, computer science, and neurotechnology, he specializes in analyzing various datasets including spiking, local field potential, ECoG, EEG, and fMRI. His skills encompass signal processing, machine learning and statistical modeling, graph theory and computational modeling, with experience in experimental design and data collection of electrophysiological signals, as well as preclinical modeling of brain injury.
Dr Tsikonofilos previous research had a clinical focus on cognitive enhancers, hearing loss, cochlear implant design, and traumatic brain injury. Currently a postdoctoral researcher in the lab, he will work towards uncovering biomarkers of psychiatric disorders and treatment outcomes and exploring the role of neural variability and plasticity in fear avoidance behavior, utilizing multimodal datasets.
Ondrej Zika, PhD
Postdoc
Dr Zika completed his BSc in Psychology & Marketing at Aberystwyth University, during which he worked as a research assistant (RA) at Caltech in John O'Doherty's lab, before moving to Oxford University first as an RA in Sonia Bishop's lab and later as a PhD student. During his PhD, Dr Zika investigated computational and neural mechanisms of aversive learning in relation to anxiety. He later joined the lab of Dr Nico Schuck at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development where he continued his work on a brad range of topics in computational psychiatry and cognitive neuroscience. At the Månsson lab, Dr Zika investigates test-retest reliability of neural signals, as well as perception of ambiguity in a psychiatric and a non-clinical sample.
Amir Manzouri, MSc
Research engineer
Amir studied medical imaging at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and has been working with neuroimaging methods as a research engineer since 2010. Amir has been involved in research on Alzheimer’s disease, gender identity, emotion, stress and anxiety disorders. Amir has extensive experience with data collection (e.g., magnetic resonance imaging, MRI scanning), and expertise in data pre- and post-processing, higher level statistical analyses on functional MRI data, e.g., psycho-physiological interactions (PPI), partial least squares (PLS), support vector machines (SVM), and independent component analysis (ICA). Moreover, Amir also has extensive expertise in structural MRI data analysis, e.g., FreeSurfer, AFNI, BrainVoyager, and voxel based morphometry (VBM), and tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS).
Jingjing Ye
Visiting PhD student (University of Edinburgh)
Jingjing Ye is a PhD student from University of Edinburgh. Jing's project focuses on using functional MRI to understand cerebellar and emotional network in rat model of autism.
Oana Munteanu, MD
PhD student (Babeș-Bolyai University)
Oana is a PhD student, and a medical child and adolescent psychiatry resident at Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Oana participates in the development of a study to investigates the neural correlates of social fear learning among adolescents diagnosed with anxiety disorders.
Georgian Anghelescu
PhD student (Babeș-Bolyai University)
Georgian is a computer science engineer who graduated from the Military Technical Academy "Ferdinand I" of Bucharest. Georgian is a PhD student at Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca and his research focuses on developing an auomated denoising technique for functional MRI data using a convolutional neural network (CNN) model.
Eleni Lazaridou
ERASMUS+ Internship
Eleni studied Psychology at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece where she recieved her license as a psychologist. During her studies she completed a diploma thesis on the field of positive psychology and well-being in the elderly. She also acquired experience with psychological and cognitive assessment tools while volunteering in day care centers for Alzheimer's Disease patients. Eleni's bachelor internship included dealing with psychotic and alcohol dependence patients, and Eleni also conducted clinical interviews at a psychiatric clinic within a military hospital.
Josefine Tigerstedt Andresen
Research Assistant
Josefine is currently studying her second year at läkarprogrammet (medical degree), Karolinska institutet. She works as a research assistant in the lab. Josefine is supporting the TreVar research project.
Julia Stache, MSc
Research Assistant
Julia completed her Bachelor's in Psychology at the University of Stirling, Scotland, before moving to Sweden to pursue a Master's in Psychology at Stockholm University. Since 2023, she has been working as a research assistant in Julie Lasselin's lab. Her Master's thesis explored the caregiver-participant relationship and its association with inflammatory and behavioural health outcomes during experimental sickness. Julia is currently developing a novel task to measure interoceptive beliefs about core body temperature in collaboration with Francesca Fardo’s team at Aarhus University, Denmark. Julia has a strong personal interest in neuroscience and pharmacodynamics and is collaborating with Månsson lab on an upcoming LPS study while expanding her skills in collecting and analysing fMRI data.
Naira Sardarian
Research Assistant
Naira is a final year medical student and previously completed an internship at Stockholm University Brain Imaging Center (SUBIC). During her internship, Naira participated in acquisition of magnetic resonance brain images, collecting physiological and behavioural data, testing experimental protocols for research projects, and performed data analysis of structural and functional MRI data. Naira is currently working as a research assistant, support data collection in the TreVar research project.
Susanna Girino
ERASMUS+ Internship
Susanna is currently pursuing an MSc in Neuroscience and Neuropsychological Rehabilitation at the University of Padova, Italy. During her internship at the Neurological Clinic of the Hospital of Padova, she developed her expertise in neuropsychological assessment and rehabilitation, providing care for both inpatients and outpatients. She also contributed to a research study investigating the impact of an enriched environment on stroke patients in the Stroke Unit. In addition, during her internship at a psychiatric clinic, Susanna participated in psychiatric assessments and diagnosis. Her work included data collection through questionnaires and computerized tasks. Susanna will be involved in our ongoing research projects exploring the relationships between expectations, neural dynamics, and treatment outcomes in depression, social anxiety disorder, and insomnia.
Alumni
Visiting PhD students and postdocs
- Enzo Nio, PhD student at University Hospital Essen, Germany
- Alice Doubliez, student at University Hospital Essen, Germany
Alumni
Internships and Bachelor or Master level theses
- National: Adam Yngve, Anna Stavenberg, Arian Jafari, Björn von Gegerfelt, Bo Jenner, Hjalmar Lindström, Jennie Åberg Syed, Johannes Mogren, Markus Söderqvist, Mathilda Björkman, Nikolay Popov, Nils Isacsson, Sara Rajjala, Simon Höglund, Örn Kolbeinsson
- International: Laura Terlau (Osnabrück University, Germany), Liisbeth Pirn (University of Munich, Germany), Virginia Berlose (University of Padoa, Italy), Alice Clerouin (Ecole Normale Supérieure, France), Katarzyna Karpa (Universität Heidelberg, Germany), Sara Halmans (University of Lübeck, Germany), Federica Mazzilli (Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy), Vanessa Ruggiero (University of Padova, Italy)
Funding sources
We are grateful for the generous support provided by
Swedish Research Council
Funding provided 2018 and 2023 (2024-2027).
European Union
Funding provided by the European Union (2023-2026).
KIRI Fellow
Dr Månsson and Dr Ampatzis at Karolinska Institutet received funding from KIRI Fellow: "Investigations of brain signal variability and rapid plasticity during approach-avoidance of fear: experiments of humans and zebrafish"
Center for Innovative Medicine (CIMED)
Funding provided 2022.
Swedish Brain Foundation
Funding provided 2022.
Region Stockholm
Funding provided, 2022, 2024.
