Katya Rubia facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Katya Rubia
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| Alma mater | University of Munich, PhD, 1994 |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Cognitive neuroscience |
| Institutions | Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London |
| Thesis | (1994) |
| Academic advisors | Ernst Pöppel, Yves von Cramon, Joseph Sergeant, Eric Taylor |
Katya Rubia is a professor who studies the brain, especially how it works in children. She works at King's College London in England.
She is famous for her research on conditions that affect how kids think and behave. These include attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and conduct disorder. She uses special brain scans, like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), to understand the brain better. She also uses a technique called fMRI-neurofeedback to help train the brain.
Contents
Education and Career
Early Studies
Katya Rubia studied Philosophy and Psychology in Spain. She earned her first degree in 1987 from the Complutense University of Madrid.
Later, she earned her PhD in neuropsychology in 1994. This was at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany. Her PhD research looked at how people with brain injuries understand time.
Working at King's College London
After her PhD, she worked as a researcher in Germany and the Netherlands. Since 1995, she has been at King's College London in England. She became a full professor there in 2008.
At the university, she teaches about how the brain works. She also helps lead the department that studies child and teen mental health. She is in charge of the section that uses brain imaging to understand how the brain develops.
Brain Research and Discoveries
Understanding ADHD
One of Katya Rubia's first big discoveries was about children with ADHD. She found that they often have trouble with timing. This can be linked to being impulsive.
Her most important work has been using brain imaging to study ADHD. She was one of the first to scan the brains of children with ADHD in the 1990s. She continues this research today. Her work has shown that ADHD is a real brain condition. It is not just about children being "naughty." She has shown that ADHD involves differences in brain chemistry, structure, and function.
Studying Other Brain Conditions
Professor Rubia is also an expert in brain imaging for other conditions. These include autism, depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. She studies these to see which brain differences are unique to ADHD. She also looks at which differences are shared with other childhood conditions.
She has also researched how medicines for ADHD affect the brain. This includes stimulant and non-stimulant medications. She looks at how they change brain structure, function, and chemistry.
New Ways to Help Patients
More recently, her research focuses on using brain imaging to help diagnose and treat patients. She uses computer methods to see if ADHD can be diagnosed using MRI scans.
Another exciting area is using fMRI-neurofeedback. This teaches children to control their own brain activity. They play a video game that is connected to their brain. This helps them train brain areas that are not working well. She also uses other brain stimulation methods. The goal is to create new brain therapies. These therapies could have lasting effects to help reduce ADHD symptoms.
Awards and Recognition
Katya Rubia has written over 270 articles for science journals. She received the European Kramer-Pollnow prize in 2013. This award is for excellent research in child and teen mental health. In 2019, she became a member of the Royal National Academy of Medicine of Spain.
She was also named a "Highly Cited Researcher" in 2019 and 2020. This means her research papers are among the most influential in the world.
Other Interests
Katya Rubia is also interested in how meditation affects the brain. She has studied how meditation could be a helpful treatment for children with ADHD. It can be used as a complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).
