Raquel Correia is a PhD student under supervision of Ana João Rodrigues and Carina Soares-Cunha. Her work focus on how the neuronal ensembles of the nucleus accumbens and the ventral pallidum encode and respond to positive (rewarding) and negative (aversive) events. To answer this question, she is using innovative techniques such as calcium imaging and optogenetics.
Raquel Correia holds a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry recognized by the University of Coimbra and a master’s in Health Sciences attributed by the University of Minho. During her master’s thesis, she studied the involvement of specific neuronal pathways of the reward circuit in the development of anxiety- and depressive-like behaviors by taking advantage of optogenetic tools.
Along her scientific path, Raquel Correia has gained experience in a broad range of techniques, namely intracranial surgeries for viral delivery, optogenetics, in vivo electrophysiology, animal behavior, colony breeding/management, immunofluorescence, and microscopy.
Her ability to work in a team and her persuasion demonstrated so far resulted in the publication of some original scientific articles, published in scientific journals such as “Cell Reports”, “Journal of Neuroscience Research” and “Brain, Behavior, & Immunity-Health” and several scientific posters, of which she highlights the presentation of a scientific poster in the iMed Competition 12.0.