Research

Healthy Ageing and Brain Dynamics

Healthy ageing is associated with gradual changes in brain function, memory performance, and electrophysiological activity. This line of my research investigates the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying healthy ageing by combining behavioural paradigms with EEG and MEG to characterise age-related alterations in brain dynamics and neural oscillations, including oscillatory power and functional connectivity. Through both experimental and large-scale longitudinal studies, I examine how electrophysiological activity supports episodic memory and other cognitive processes, and how changes in neural dynamics reflect adaptive and compensatory mechanisms that contribute to cognitive resilience. More recently, my work has focused on identifying the longitudinal neurophysiological signatures of healthy ageing in resting-state MEG, helping to distinguish genuine age-related changes from differences that arise between individuals and across generations.

Memory Suppression and Inhibitory Mechanisms

Remembering is not always beneficial. My research investigates the neural mechanisms that enable people to suppress unwanted memories and regulate the contents of awareness. Using behavioural paradigms together with multimodal neuroimaging, including simultaneous EEG-fMRI and EEG-rTMS, I study how inhibitory control processes dynamically interact with memory systems to prevent the retrieval of unwanted experiences. This work has contributed to identifying the large-scale brain networks and electrophysiological dynamics that support both proactive and reactive forms of memory control, including frontal midline theta activity and the N2 event-related potential (ERP). More broadly, this research aims to understand how inhibitory control shapes the contents of awareness and why disruptions to these mechanisms may contribute to psychiatric disorders characterised by persistent unwanted memories and intrusive thoughts.

Brain Oscillations and Memory Processes

Memory formation and maintenance rely on the dynamic coordination of distributed brain networks. My research investigates how neural oscillations support episodic and working memory by combining behavioural paradigms with EEG, MEG, and intracranial electrophysiological recordings. I examine how changes in oscillatory power and phase synchronisation coordinate communication between hippocampal and cortical regions during encoding, retrieval, and maintenance, providing insights into the neural mechanisms underlying successful memory formation.

A first line of research has explored how semantic context facilitates episodic associative memory. These studies showed that semantic congruence enhances memory encoding by modulating theta power and functional connectivity within distributed hippocampal–parietal–prefrontal networks, revealing how oscillatory dynamics optimise communication between memory and attentional systems during successful encoding and retrieval.

A second line has investigated the role of alpha oscillations in working memory maintenance. By analysing both oscillatory power and phase synchronisation, this work demonstrated that local and long-range alpha dynamics reflect complementary mechanisms of top-down control, balancing the inhibition of task-irrelevant cortical regions with the engagement of frontoparietal networks as memory demands increase.

More recently, my research has examined the contribution of hippocampal theta oscillations to spatial memory. By combining MEG with simultaneous intracranial electrophysiological recordings, this work showed that decreases in low-frequency theta power, together with enhanced long-range phase synchronisation, support the encoding of accurate spatial representations during virtual navigation.

Hippocampal Dynamics with Magnetoencephalography

The hippocampus plays a central role in memory and spatial cognition, yet whether its activity can be reliably detected using magnetoencephalography (MEG) has long been debated because of its deep anatomical location. My research has contributed to validating MEG as a tool for investigating hippocampal dynamics by combining methodological and experimental approaches. Through a systematic evaluation of the literature, I identified the methodological requirements necessary for the reliable detection and localisation of hippocampal activity with MEG, providing practical recommendations for future studies. Complementing this work, I have combined MEG with simultaneous intracranial electrophysiological recordings to demonstrate convergent evidence for hippocampal oscillatory activity during spatial memory encoding, supporting the validity of MEG-derived hippocampal signals and their application to the study of human memory.