Human Neuroscience Lab – University of Granada

Our lab is located at the Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center. Here we have access to several behavioral testing rooms, a 3T Siemens Magnetic Resonance Imaging facility with compatible EEG and EyeLink Eyetracker, high-density EEG recording devices, and a Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation device with a robotic assistant and neuronavigator.

People

MARÍA RUZ

Senior PI

Maria did her PhD in Granada and the Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology in New York, and enjoyed a postdoc in New College at Oxford. She is currently Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center of the University of Granada. She has a broad interest in understanding the neural mechanisms that shape cognition in the human brain.

Carlos González-García

PI

I am a Ramón y Cajal fellow in Granada, where I did my PhD with María Ruz and Pío Tudela. I spent some time as a Fulbright scholar in Biyu He’s lab at NIH and NYU, and as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoc fellow in Marcel Brass’ lab at Ghent University. I am a psychologist often navigating the intersection of cognitive and computational neuroscience.

ANA F. PALENCIANo

PI

I did my PhD at the Mind, Brain, and Behavior Research Center with Maria Ruz, exploring how the brain flexibly encodes novel, instructed demands. I continued deepening on that field while working as a postdoc at Ghent University, in Marcel Brass’ and Baptist Liefooghe’s labs. Now I am a postdoc researcher at the University of Granada. In general terms, I’m interested in studying neural task representations using fMRI/EEG and multivariate analyses.

RODIKA SOKOLIUK

PI

I am a Ramón y Cajal fellow based in Granada. I did my PhD with Rufin VanRullen in Toulouse (France), followed by a postdoc with Simon Hanslmayr, Karen Mullinger and Stephen Mayhew in Birmingham and Nottingham (UK). I then pursued a second postdoc at the Centre of Human Brain Health in Birmingham with Damian Cruse, before I relocated to Berlin (Germany) to work with Surjo Soekadar and Andrea Kühn at the Charité University Hospital. My current research interests blend what I have learnt during my research journey, straddling the line between basic and applied research. Combining electrophysiology with cognitive paradigms, I aim to improve diagnostic and prognostic accuracy in unresponsive patients with disorders of consciousness.

David Richter

PI

I am a Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoc at the Mind, Brain, and Behavior Research Center, where I explore how predictions influence sensory processing and how we learn from statistical regularities. Previously, I was a postdoc in VU Amsterdam, focusing on the neural underpinnings of distractor suppression. Prior to this, I was a postdoc and completed my PhD in the Predictive Brain Lab at Donders Institute, specializing in predictive processing. More information about my research can also be found on my website.

BLANCA AGUADO-LÓPEZ

MSc Neuroscience — PhD Student

I am a PhD student at the University of Granada, where I also completed my Master’s degree on Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience. I am studying the mechanisms of preparation in relation with motivation. In these studies, we use EEG and fMRI. In my free time I love hiking, travelling and watercolor painting.

Francisco Gutiérrez

MSc Neuroscience — Phd Student

I am a PhD student at the University of Granada, where I also completed a master’s degree in Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience. My research focuses on the neuro-cognitive mechanisms that underlie the modulation that social expectations have on the perception of other people. To this end, we combine behavioral measures such as mouse movements with neural recordings such as EEG and fRMI. I use my free time for climbing, music and friends, not forgetting my lovely kitty.

Paula Pena

MSc Neuroscience — Phd Student

I am a PhD student at the University of Granada, where I also completed an MSc on Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience. I am studying preparatory mechanisms relevant when performing novel tasks and how these neural task codes are structured. In my free time I love going to the movies and crocheting.

Michelle Hefner

Biomedical engineer - PhD student

I am a PhD student at the University of Granada, co-supervised by María Ruz & Christopher Summerfield. I have a dual Bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering and chemical & biological engineering from Colorado State University, where I was an undergraduate researcher in a cognitive neuroscience lab working on multimodal fusion of neuroimaging data and machine learning. Loosely, I’m interested in neuroimaging and AI and using computational methods to model and investigate cognitive processes in the human brain. Outside of research I love cooking, the outdoors, and music!

Johannah Voeller

MSc Psychology - PhD student

I am a PhD student at the University of Granada, co-supervised by Carlos González García & Juan Linde Domingo. During my PhD, I study how we learn new information in a single instance, focusing on the contribution of different memory systems to retaining this information over time. Previously, I completed my MSc in Psychology at the University of Leipzig, Germany, during which I was a research assistant at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Doeller. Outside of everything brain-y I love arts & crafts, the outdoors, and fries!

Jose manuel garcía

MSc student

I am a student of the Master’s in Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience at the Mind, Brain, and Behavior Research Center (CIMCYC) of the University of Granada (UGR). I completed my undergraduate degree in Psychology at this same university, but over the years, I have had the opportunity to undertake stays at other institutions such as Leiden University (Netherlands) and the University of Almería (Spain). Currently, I am investigating how selective attention and perceptual expectations interact. I am passionate about neuroscience and lab work, but above all, I enjoy the simple act of learning something new every day.

ALUMNI

Chema G. Peñalver, Ph.D.
Sergio Gaspar, MSc.
Tijana Bačlić, MSc.
Paolo Buttazzoni, MSc.
Rocío Rodríguez Valdés, MSc.
Ricardo de Haro, MSc.
David López-García, Ph.D.
Tara Beilner, MSc.
Alberto Sobrado, MSc.
Christopher Williamson
Mercedes Fernández-Argüelles
Kenéz Bogdány, MSc.
Alejandro Sandoval, MSc.
Paloma Díaz-Gutiérrez, Ph.D.
Juan E. Arco, Ph.D.
Sonia Alguacil, Ph.D.
María Tortosa, Ph.D.
Clara Aranda, Ph.D
Lidia Izquierdo
Cristina Sánchez
Javier Guerrero, MSc.
Marta Puertollano, MSc.
Victor Moreno
Noelia Herrera, MSc.
Beatriz Moreno, MSc.
Antonio Barba, MSc.
Celia Gaertig, MSc.
Anna Moser, MSc.
Aina Casaponsa, MSc.
Tatiana Strizhko, MSc.

Visiting students

Sahar Seifzadeh
Bazil Pasques
Fanni Vikor
Merel de Merlier
Laura De Laere
Yulya Bedritskaya
Giada Viviani
Marc Sabio
Luc Vermeylen
Despina Gatz
Flavia Arnese
Iulia Boncu
Federico Citterio

COLLABORATORS

Research

Neural coding of information for proactive cognitive control

PI: María Ruz

Funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science — PID2022-138940NB-I00

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PreVision - Prediction error computation in visual perception

PI: David Richter

Funded by Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action — 101147241

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Neural coding geometries for flexible behavior

PI: Ana F. Palenciano

Funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science — PID2023-151911NA-I00

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Silent waves of consciousness

PI: Rodika Sokoliuk

Funded by the Ramón y Cajal Grant 2022 — RYC2022-037911-I

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FLARE - The representational architecture of fast learning through abstraction

PI: Carlos González-García

Funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science — PID2023-149428NB-I00

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Publications

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Pena, P., Palenciano, A. F., González-García, C., & Ruz, M. (2025). Novel verbal instructions recruit abstract neural patterns of time-variable information dimensionality. Journal of Neuroscience. — PDF

Peñalver, J. M., González-García, C., Palenciano, A. F., López-García, D., & Ruz, M. (2024). Context-dependent neural preparation for information relevance vs. probability. Imaging Neuroscience. — PDF

Aguado-López, B., Palenciano, A. F., Peñalver, J. M., Díaz-Gutiérrez, P., López-García, D., Avancini, C., … & Ruz, M. (2024). Proactive selective attention across competition contexts. Cortex, 176, 113-128. — PDF

Peñalver, J. M., López-García, D., González-García, C., Aguado-López, B., Górriz, J. M., & Ruz, M. (2023). Top-down specific preparatory activations for selective attention and perceptual expectations. NeuroImage, 271, 119960. — PDF

Palenciano, A.F., Senoussi, M., Formica, S., & González-García, C. (2023). Canonical template tracking: measuring the activation state of specific neural representations. Frontiers in Neuroimaging — PDF

Formica, S., González-García, C., Senoussi, M., Marinazzo, D., & Brass, M. (2022). Theta-phase connectivity between medial prefrontal and posterior areas underlies novel instructions implementation. eNeuro — PDF

Sobrado, A.*, Palenciano, A. F.*, Gonzalez Garcia, C., & Ruz, M. (2022). The effect of task demands on the neural patterns generated by novel instruction encoding. Cortex — PDF

Wisniewski, D., Cracco, E., González-García, C., Brass, M. (2022). Relating Free Will Beliefs and Attitudes. Royal Society Open Science. — PDF

Liu, X., Wisniewski, D., Vermeylen, L., Palenciano, A. F., Liu, W., & Brysbaert, M. (2021). The representations of Chinese characters: evidence from sub-lexical components. Journal of Neuroscience. — PDF

Wisniewski, D., González-García, C., Formica, S., Woolgar, A., & Brass, M. (2023). Adaptive coding of stimulus information in human frontoparietal cortex during visual classification. NeuroImage, 274, 120150. — PDF

López-García, D., Peñalver, J. M., Górriz, J. M., & Ruz, M. (2022). MVPAlab: A machine learning decoding toolbox for multidimensional electroencephalography data. Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine, 214, 106549. — PDF

Mas-Herrero, E., Adrover-Roig, D., Ruz, M., & de Diego-Balaguer, R. (2021). Do bilinguals outperform monolinguals in switching tasks? Contrary evidence for nonlinguistic and linguistic switching tasks. Neurobiology of Language, 2(4), 586-604. — PDF

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Locate us

Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center

University of Granada

Centro de Investigación Mente, Cerebro y Comportamiento (CIMCYC). C/Campus de la Cartuja S/N, 18011, Granada.