Research information:
I joined the lab in June 2013 as a project leader and lab manager. I studied molecular biology and genetics at Uppsala University with a specialization in neuropharmacology for which I received a Master’s degree in medical sciences in 2011.
My previous research activity centered around two clinical trials on food intake at the University Hospital in Uppsala. In the first study we used fMRI to examine the response of anorexia patients to visual food stimuli. In a second fMRI trial we studied the role of the FTO gene in neural reward systems during visual food presentation. My tasks consisted of providing support for study design, writing ethics applications, project coordination, processing blood samples, analyzing data and writing manuscripts.
Since 2012 I have been involved in structural MRI and neurophysiology studies at Karolinska Institutet investigating: 1) the effects of burnout and chronic stress on brain measures; 2) Changes in body perception, neurocognition and brain measures related to sex-change operations in transgender individuals.
Refereed journal articles:
Abé C, Johansson E, Allzén E, Savic I. Sexual orientation related differences in cortical thickness in male individuals. PLoS One 2014. Dec 5;9(12):e114721. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0114721. eCollection 2014. PMID: 25479554
Brooks SJ, Savov V, Allzén E, Benedict C, Fredriksson R, Schiöth HB. Exposure to subliminal arousing stimuli induces robust activation in the amygdala, hippocampus, anterior cingulate, insular cortex and primary visual cortex: a systematic meta-analysis of fMRI studies. Neuroimage. 2012 Feb 1;59(3):2962-73. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.09.077. Epub 2011 Oct 7. PMID: 22001789
Rask-Andersen M, Jacobsson JA, Moschonis G, Chavan RA, Sikder MA, Allzén E, Alsiö J, Chrousos GP, Manios Y, Fredriksson R, Schiöth HB. Association of TMEM18 variants with BMI and waist circumference in children and correlation of mRNA expression in the PFC with body weight in rats. Eur J Hum Genet. 2012 Feb;20(2):192-7. doi: 10.1038/ejhg.2011.176. Epub 2011 Sep 28. PMID: 21952719