Shanti Shanker
Contact Details:
Email: s.shanker@bangor.ac.uk
Tel: 01248 383626
Brigantia Building Room 252
I completed my BA and M.Sc. in Psychology from India in 2005; I gained some work experience as an academic assistant, and behavioural trainer.
Later, I briefly worked in Australia (University of Western Australia, Perth) as a research assistant and was introduced to neuropsychological assessments.
I then continued to gain experience as a research assistant in the Stanford Memory Lab (http://memorylab.stanford.edu/index.html).
In 2008, I received a summer research fellowships (Indian Institute of Science) to spend some time in the National Brain Research Centre (NBRC) where I worked on a pilot study (using fMRI), in Dr. Aditya Murthy’s Lab. I then continued to hold various posts as a clinical psychologist/Neuropsychologist with various hospitals/clinics in Mumbai, India.
I first moved to Bangor in 2010 to complete my M.Sc. in Foundations of Clinical Neuropsychology. My M.Sc. thesis, supervised by Dr. Martyn Bracewell was entitled “White matter microstructures: underlying timing and rhythm in healthy controls.”
Every experience and crises has some representation in our memory. I am interested in how does our brain choose which memory is to be remembered and what should be forgotten? Also, how do our emotion and/or emotional capacities affect this choice? Specifically, I will be investigating this in neurological patients. In addition, my longstanding interest is how can we extend this research and integrate the information into everyday neurorehabilitation? I use behavioural and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) approaches.
I also contribute as a teaching assistant on these modules:
M.Sc. Advanced Statistics (2011-12/2012-13)
Biological Foundations of Memory, 3rd year Undergraduate (2012-13)
Research Methods, 2nd year Undergraduate (2011-12)
Publications:
Race, E.A., Shanker, S., & Wagner, A.D.( 2009). Neural Priming in Human Prefrontal Cortex: Multiple Forms of Learning Reduce Demands on the Prefrontal Executive System. J Cogn. Neuroscience.
Nair, G., Van Dyk, K., Shah, U., Purohit, D.P., Pinto, C., Shah, A.B., Grossman, H., Perl, D., Shanker, S., & Sano, M. (2012). Characterizing cognitive deficits and dementia in an aging urban population in India. International Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. doi:10.1155/2012/673849
Salas, C.E., Vaughan, F., Shanker, S., & Turnbull, O.H. (2013). Stuck in a moment, Concreteness and psychotherapy after acquired brain injury. Journal of Neuro-disability & Psychotherapy.