Research information:

My research aims to elucidate genetic and neural mechanisms that influence human cognition. I employ functional and structural neuroimaging as well as genetic and epigenetic technology to address my research questions. As a postdoctoral researcher in Torkel Klingberg’s lab I am currently exploring how motivation and reward positively affects the development of working memory after training.

I obtained a BSc in Psychology at University College London, which sparked an interest in how genetics and neural mechanisms affect human behavior. I completed an MSc in developmental neuroscience in Robert Schultz lab at Yale University, which was run jointly with University College London (2008).

During my time at Yale I began to work in an adolescent psychiatric ward, which inspired a return to the UK where I completed a PhD in psychiatric neuroscience at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London (2012). During my PhD I worked on the IMAGEN dataset, which is composed of neuroimaging, genetic, behavioural and clinical data of 2000 healthy adolescents.

My thesis explored the effect of dopaminergic genes and activation in the human reward system on impulsivity and ADHD symptoms. Findings suggest that gender-dimorphic activation patterns in the reward system may underlie ADHD-symptomatology and that neural mechanisms underlying ADHD symptoms are stratified by the X-linked MAOA-gene. I have since held a postdoctoral research position in Gunter Schumann’s lab at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London (2012-2013) and currently in Torkel Klingberg’s lab at the Karolinska Institute (since April 2013).

Refereed journal articles:

Nymberg C, et. al. (2014). DRD2/ANKKI Polymorphism Modulates the Effect of Ventral Striatal Activation on Working Memory Performance. Neuropsychopharmacology 1-9. Doi 10.1038/Npp.2014.83

Nymberg C, Jia T, Lubbe S, Ruggeri B, Desrivieres S, Barker GJ, Büchel C, Fauth-Buehler M, Cattrell A, Conrod PJ, Flor H, Gallinat J, Garavan H, Heinz A, Ittermann B, Lawrence C, Mann K, Nees F, Paillère Martinot M-L, Paus T, Rietschel M, Robbins TW, Smolka MN, Banaschewski T, Rubia K, Loth E, Schumann G, and the IMAGEN consortium. Neural mechanisms of ADHD symptoms are stratified by MAOA genotype, Biological Psychiatry, doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2013.03.027.

Nymberg C, Jia T, Ruggeri B, Schumann G. (2013). Analytical strategies for large imaging genetic datasets: Experiences from the IMAGEN study. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1282(1):92-106.

Stacey D, Bilbao A, Maroteaux M, Jia T, Easton A.C, Longueville S, Nymberg C, Banaschewski T, Barker, G.J, Buechel C, Carvalho F, Conrod P, Desrivieres S, Fauth-Buehler M, Fernandez-Medarde A, Flor H, Gallinat J, Garavan H, Bokde A, Heinz A, Ittermann B, Lathrop M, Lawrence C, Loth E, Lourdusamy A, Mann K, Martinot J-L, Nees F, Palkovits M, Paus T, Pausova Z, Rietschel M, Muller C.P, Spanagel R, Girault J.A, Schumann G, and the IMAGEN consortium. (2012). RasGRF2 regulates alcohol-induced reinforcement by influencing mesolimbic dopamine neuron activity and dopamine release. PNAS, 18;109(51):21128-33.

Clarke TK, Nymberg C, Schumann G. (2012). Genetic and environmental determinants of stress responding. Alcohol Research, 34(4):484-494.

Herrington JD, Nymberg C, Faja S, Price E, Schultz RT. (2012) The responsiveness of biological motion processing areas to selective attention towards goals, Neuroimage, 14;63(1):581-590.

Herrington JD, Nymberg C, Schultz RT. (2011) Biological motion task performance predicts superior temporal sulcus activity, Brain and Cognition, 77(3):372-381.

Bergen SE, Balhara YP, Christoforou A, Cole J, Degenhardt F, Dempster E, Fatjo-Vilas M, Khedr Y, Lopez LM, Lysenko L, McGrath LM, Muhleisen TW, Neves FS, Nymberg C, Ozomaro U, Verweij KJ, Voineskos AN, Zai CC, O’Shea A, DeLisi LE. (2011) Summaries from the XVIII World Congress of Psychiatric Genetics, Athens, Greece, 3-7 October 2010, Psychiatric Genetics 21(3):136-172.