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, Joseph Sergeant, Eric Taylor |
Katya Rubia is a leading scientist who studies the brain. She is a professor at King's College London in England. Her work focuses on how the brain works, especially in children. She looks at conditions that affect how kids think and behave.
Professor Rubia is famous for her research on conditions like attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). She also studies autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and conduct disorder. To understand the brain, she uses special tools. These include brain scans like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and a technique called fMRI-neurofeedback.
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Becoming a Brain Scientist
Katya Rubia started her journey in Spain. In 1987, she earned a degree in Philosophy and Psychology. This was from the Complutense University of Madrid.
She then moved to Germany to continue her studies. In 1994, she received her PhD in neuropsychology. This degree focused on how brain injuries affect a person's sense of time. She earned it from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
After her PhD, she worked as a research assistant. She spent six months at the Technische Universität München. Then, she worked for a year in Amsterdam at the University of Amsterdam.
Since 1995, Professor Rubia has been at King's College London. She works in the Child Psychiatry Department. In 2008, she became a full professor. She teaches about how the brain thinks and learns. She also leads a team that studies brain development and uses brain imaging.
Discovering Brain Connections
Professor Rubia has made many important discoveries. Early in her career, she found that children with ADHD often have trouble with timing. This problem is linked to being impulsive.
Her main work involves using brain imaging. She was one of the first scientists to scan the brains of children with ADHD in the 1990s. She continues this research today. Her work has helped show that ADHD is not just about "naughty" children. Instead, it is a real brain condition. It involves differences in brain chemistry, structure, and function.
She has also scanned brains for other conditions. These include autism, depression, and schizophrenia. Her goal is to find out which brain differences are unique to ADHD. She also wants to see which ones are shared with other childhood conditions.
Another part of her research looks at medicines for ADHD. She studies how stimulant and non-stimulant medications affect the brain. She checks their impact on brain structure, function, and chemistry.
New Ways to Help Brains
Recently, Professor Rubia's research has focused on helping patients directly. She uses special computer methods to see if brain scans can help diagnose ADHD. This means using MRI scans to identify ADHD patients.
An exciting new area for her is fMRI-Neurofeedback. This technique teaches children to control their own brain activity. Her research shows that certain brain areas in ADHD patients don't work as well. She teaches kids to boost activity in these areas.
She does this by creating a video game. The game is connected to the child's brain activity. As the child learns to increase brain activation, a rocket ship moves higher in the game. She also uses brain stimulation with brain training. This helps improve how these brain regions work. The hope is to create new brain therapies. These therapies could have lasting effects. They might help reduce the symptoms of ADHD.
Professor Rubia has written over 200 scientific papers. She has received several awards for her work. In 2013, she won the Kramer-Pollnow prize. This was for her contributions to child psychiatric research. She was also named a Highly Cited Researcher in 2019 and 2020. This means her papers are among the most influential in her field.
Other Interests
Professor Rubia also studies the effects of meditation. She looks at how meditation changes brain function and structure. She has explored if meditation could be a helpful extra treatment for children with ADHD.
