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Dr Maria Herrojo Ruiz

Staff details

Position Lecturer in Psychology
Department Psychology
Email M.Herrojo-Ruiz (@gold.ac.uk)
Phone +44 (0)20 7919 7870
Website http://maria-herrojoruiz.net/
Dr Maria Herrojo Ruiz

Summary 

María is a Lecturer at the Department of Psychology, where she also co-directs the MSc in Computational Cognitive Neuroscience. In addition, she is a Research Leader Fellow at the Centre for Cognition and Decision Making at the Higher University of Economics, Moscow. Her research focuses on methodological and computational approaches to study central questions regarding the neural bases of sensorimotor learning and motor control in healthy and clinical populations. More recently, María’s research focuses on understanding the role of anxiety on motor and perceptual learning. She received the Susanne Klein- Vogelbach award for the research in human movement (2014).

Grants and Awards

María has received external grant funding from a variety of organisations to support her work including: European Commission, German Research Foundation, British Academy, ESRC, Ernst Schering Stiftung, IBRO.

Public Engagement and Knowledge Exchange

Marías research has had an effect on the general population, including musicians and patients with movement disorders, mainly by raising their awareness of the research outcomes and implications for everyday life. This is evidenced in the following: 

  • Her research has been shared with the general public in the UK using different media (e.g. radio podcast “The Anthill” for the Conversation, talks at the KCL Health and Medicine sessions and Brain Awareness week). In addition, as a part of her ongoing (since 2016) collaboration with the Spanish Radio and Television Corporation (RTVE) in the form of monthly radio interviews, she has shared the findings on her research. For this collaboration she received in 2017 an award by the Spanish National Research Council in the category “Scientific Public Awareness”.
  • She received funding from the Ernst Schering Stiftung and the Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience in Tübingen, Germany, to co-organise the “International Symposium on Music performance: Art and Neuroscience in Dialogue” in April 2016 in Tübingen, which involved members of the general public.
  • Her work on motor learning in Parkinsons disease was awarded the Susanne Klein-Vogelbach Award for Research on Human Movement (2014). It was also highlighted in the international media, thereby contributing to its further dissemination in the general population.

Research Interests

Marías main themes of research relate to the areas of motor, clinical and cognitive neuroscience. She is a member of our Cognition and Neuroscience Group and our Science of the Creative and Performing Arts Group. Key areas of interest are listed below. Additional details can be found at http://María- herrojoruiz.net/

  • Anxiety
  • Computational Modelling
  • Decision Making
  • Motor Control
  • Movement Disorders
  • Music Performance
  • Perceptual Learning
  • Sensorimotor Learning

Publications

Article

Sporn, Sebastian; Hein, Thomas and Herrojo Ruiz, Maria. 2020. Alterations in the amplitude and burst rate of beta oscillations impair reward dependent motor learning in anxiety. eLife, 9, e50654. ISSN 2050-084X

Schmidt, Robert; Herrojo Ruiz, Maria; Kilavik, Bjorg; Lundqvist, Mikael; Starr, Philip and Aron, Adam R. 2019. Beta Oscillations in Working Memory, Executive Control of Movement and Thought, and Sensorimotor Function. Journal of Neuroscience, 39(42), pp. 8231-8238. ISSN 0270-6474

Hein, Thomas; de Fockert, Jan and Herrojo Ruiz, Maria. 2019. State anxiety biases estimates of uncertainty during reward learning in volatile environments. Neuroimage,

Bury, Gabriela; García Huesca, Marta; Bhattacharya, Joydeep and Herrojo Ruiz, Maria. 2019. Cardiac afferent activity modulates early neural signature of error detection during skilled performance. NeuroImage, 199, pp. 704-717. ISSN 1053-8119

Michail, Georgios; Nikulin, Vadim; Curio, Gabriel; Maess, Burkhard and Herrojo Ruiz, Maria. 2018. Disruption of Boundary Encoding During Sensorimotor Sequence Learning: An MEG Study study. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 12(240), ISSN 1662-5161

Herrojo Ruiz, Maria; Maess, Burkhard; Altenmüller, Eckart; Curio, Gabriel and Nikulin, Vadim. 2017. Cingulate and cerebellar beta oscillations are engaged in the acquisition of auditory‐motor sequences. Human Brain Mapping, 38(10), pp. 5161-5179. ISSN 1065-9471

Accolla, Ettore A; Horn, Andreas; Herrojo Ruiz, Maria; Neumann, Wolf-Julian and Kühn, Andrea A.. 2017. Reply: Oscillatory coupling of the subthalamic nucleus in obsessive compulsive disorder. Brain: A Journal of Neurology, 140(9), p. 57. ISSN 0006-8950

Accolla, Ettore A; Herrojo Ruiz, Maria; Horn, Andreas; Schneider, Gerd-Helge; Schmitz-Hübsch, Tanja; Draganski, Bogdan and Kühn, Andrea A. 2016. Brain networks modulated by subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation. Brain: A Journal of Neurology, 139(9), pp. 2503-2515. ISSN 0006-8950

Cheng, F.P.-H.; Eddy, M.-L.; Herrojo Ruiz, Maria; Großbach, M. and Altenmüller, E.O.. 2015. Sensory feedback – Dependent neural de-orchestration: The effect of altered sensory feedback on Musician’s Dystonia. Cerebral Cortex, 34(1), pp. 55-65. ISSN 1047-3211

Herrojo Ruiz, Maria; Hong, Sang Bin; Hennig, Holger; Altenmüller, Eckart and Kühn, Andrea A.. 2014. Long-range correlation properties in timing of skilled piano performance: the influence of auditory feedback and deep brain stimulation. Frontiers in Psychology, 5,

Herrojo Ruiz, Maria; Brücke, Christof; Nikulin, Vadim V.; Schneider, Gerd-Helge and Kühn, Andrea A.. 2014. Beta-band amplitude oscillations in the human internal globus pallidus support the encoding of sequence boundaries during initial sensorimotor sequence learning. NeuroImage, 85, pp. 779-793. ISSN 1053-8119

Siegert, Sandy; Herrojo Ruiz, Maria; Brücke, Christof; Huebl, Julius; Schneider, Gerd-Helge; Ullsperger, Markus and Kühn, Andrea A.. 2014. Error signals in the subthalamic nucleus are related to post-error slowing in patients with Parkinson's disease. Cortex, 60, pp. 103-120. ISSN 0010-9452

Herrojo Ruiz, Maria; Huebl, J.; Schonecker, T.; Kupsch, A.; Yarrow, K.; Krauss, J. K.; Schneider, G.-H. and Kuhn, A. A.. 2014. Involvement of Human Internal Globus Pallidus in the Early Modulation of Cortical Error-Related Activity. Cerebral Cortex, 24(6), pp. 1502-1517. ISSN 1047-3211

Herrojo Ruiz, Maria; Rusconi, M.; Brucke, C.; Haynes, J.-D.; Schonecker, T. and Kuhn, A. A.. 2014. Encoding of sequence boundaries in the subthalamic nucleus of patients with Parkinson's disease. Brain, 137(10), pp. 2715-2730. ISSN 0006-8950

Neumann, Wolf-Julian; Huebl, Julius; Brücke, Christof; Herrojo Ruiz, Maria; Kupsch, Andreas; Schneider, Gerd-Helge and Kühn, Andrea A.. 2012. Enhanced low-frequency oscillatory activity of the subthalamic nucleus in a patient with dystonia. Movement Disorders, 27(8), pp. 1063-1066. ISSN 0885-3185

Strübing, Felix; Herrojo Ruiz, Maria; Jabusch, Hans Christian and Altenmüller, Eckart. 2012. Error monitoring is altered in musician's dystonia: evidence from ERP-based studies. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1252(1), pp. 192-199.

Herrojo Ruiz, Maria; Strübing, Felix; Jabusch, Hans-Christian and Altenmüller, Eckart. 2010. EEG oscillatory patterns are associated with error prediction during music performance and are altered in musician's dystonia. NeuroImage, 55(4), pp. 1791-1803.

Pearce, Marcus T.; Herrojo Ruiz, Maria; Kapasi, Selina; Wiggins, Geraint and Bhattacharya, Joydeep. 2010. Unsupervised statistical learning underpins computational, behavioural, and neural manifestations of musical expectation. NeuroImage, 50(1), ISSN 1053-8119

Pearce, Marcus T.; Herrojo Ruiz, Maria; Kapasi, Selina; Wiggins, Geraint and Bhattacharya, Joydeep. 2010. Unsupervised statistical learning underpins computational, behavioural, and neural manifestations of musical expectation. NeuroImage, 50(1), pp. 302-313. ISSN 1053-8119

Herrojo Ruiz, Maria; Koelsch, Stefan and Bhattacharya, Joydeep. 2009. Early right alpha band phase desynchronization and late gamma band oscillations in processing musical syntax. Human Brain Mapping, 30(4), pp. 1207-1225. ISSN 1065-9471

Herrojo Ruiz, Maria; Koelsch, Stefan and Bhattacharya, Joydeep. 2009. Decrease in early right alpha band phase synchronization and late gamma band oscillations in processing syntax in music. Human brain mapping, 30(4), pp. 1207-1225. ISSN 1097-0193

Herrojo Ruiz, Maria; Senghaas, Patricia; Grossbach, Michael; Jabusch, Hans-Christian; Bangert, Marc; Hummel, Friedhelm; Gerloff, Christian and Altenmüller, Eckart. 2009. Defective inhibition and inter-regional phase synchronization in pianists with musician's dystonia: An EEG study. Human Brain Mapping, 30(8), pp. 2689-2700. ISSN 1065-9471

Herrojo Ruiz, Maria; Jabusch, H.-C. and Altenmuller, E.. 2009. Detecting Wrong Notes in Advance: Neuronal Correlates of Error Monitoring in Pianists. Cerebral Cortex, 19(11), pp. 2625-2639. ISSN 1047-3211

Herrojo Ruiz, Maria; Koelsch, Stefan and Bhattacharya, Joydeep. 2009. Decrease in early right alpha band phase synchronization and late gamma band oscillations in processing syntax in music. Human Brain Mapping, 30(4), pp. 1207-1225. ISSN 1065-9471

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