Skip to main content
Martha Nguyen

Martha Nguyen

(she/her)

Teams and roles for Martha Nguyen

Overview

I'm a PhD student in Psychology based in CUBRIC. My project focuses on targeted memory reactivation during sleep as a novel therapeutic approach to modulate emotions in mental health disorders —using measures inlcuding EEG, functional MRI, and diffusion MRI. My background spans across clinical roles within the NHS, academic research, and research impact assessment.

Research

My PhD focuses on investigating the effect of targeted memory reactivation (TMR) during sleep on affective memory. Previous study showed that TMR during REM sleep is related to changes in arousal rating of negative memory. The functional MRI result also found that the salience network and orbitofrontal cortex showed reduced activity in response to negative memories that were reactivated during sleep compared to uncued memories. For TMR during NREM, previous studies showed that structural changes are correlated with cueing benefit of TMR. More specifically, the putamen, precuneus and sensorimotor cortex showed greater reduction in mean diffusivity and water fraction restriction (Fr) in microstructural DTI in later session where participants were tested on the reactivated memory. This PhD aim to expand on previous studies in that it will investigate the influence of TMR during REM on (1) affective memories rating and recall, (2) functional activities and (3) microstructural changes in ROI related to affective memory processing including the salience network and orbitofrontal cortex.

Biography

BSc in Psychology at University of East Anglia (2018 - 2021)

PGCert in Low Intensity Cognitive Behaviour Therapy at University of East Anglia (2022 - 2023)

MSc in Clinical Neurology at University of Sheffield (2023 - 2024)

Contact Details

Email NguyenD3@cardiff.ac.uk