Faculty
Franziska Plessow, Ph.D.
Franziska Plessow, Ph.D.
Instructor in Neurology
Education History:
Ph.D., Psychology, Dresden University of Technology, Germany
Diplom (M.Sc. equivalent), Psychology, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany
Franziska obtained her Ph.D. from Dresden University of Technology, Germany. She then worked as lecturer and principal investigator and set up her own externally funded (German Research Foundation, DFG) research group before joining the Berenson-Allen Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation in 2013.
Research Interests:
Franziska’s research addresses the capabilities and limitations of cognitive control, i.e., the complex functions that regulate impulses, habits, intentional behavior, and personal autonomy. To date, she has focused primarily on critical and beneficial factors that challenge or improve the integrity of cognitive control in healthy individuals (e.g., stress, sleep deprivation, time of day, psychoneuroendocrine and psychoneuroimmunological influences). At the Berenson-Allen Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation, she aims to translate state-of-the-art theoretical and methodological knowledge from experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience into clinical research.
Her vision is to systematically test the hypothesis that a dysregulation of cognitive control represents a common pathology shared by a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders (frequently even preceding symptom manifestation) and therefore a prime target for treatment and prevention. This work serves to provide further insight into cognitive control on both the functional and the neural level. In addition, Franziska aims to contribute to improving treatments, establishing novel early-stage diagnostic assessments and prevention strategies, and developing clinical classifications beyond the current primarily symptom-based approaches.
Complete List of Published Work in MyBibliography: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/1f5bZVQOawh5c/bibliography/48073209/public/?sort=date&direction=descending .