TWINNIBS TEAM

Institute for Medical Research, University of Belgrade, Serbia

Saša Filipović

Saša Filipović is a research professor and lead of the IMR team and TWINNIBS project. He is one of the pioneers in NIBS in Serbia and over the years he has gained extensive expertise in neurophysiological and NIBS methods (tES, TMS, and EEG). His research is related to various topics including plasticity, brain rhythms, memory, motor control, movement disorders, event-related potentials, and cognitive neuroscience in general.

Jovana Bjekić

Jovana Bjekić is an associate research professor and a co-lead of the IMR team and TWINNIBS project. Her research is focused on the application of brain stimulation in cognitive neuroscience. She studies human memory and works towards developing personalized NIBS protocols to target associative memory and other cognitive functions.

Marko Živanović

Marko Živanović is an assistant research professor with a background in psychology and measurement. His research interests lay at the intersection of cognitive neuroscience and psychometrics. He primarily focuses on using NIBS to study cognition, specifically executive functions, memory, and higher cognitive functions.

Jelena Ristić

Jelena Ristić is a head of finance with expertise in financial management. She is eager to become an expert in international project financial management.

Andrej Savić

Andrej Savić is an associate research professor interested in closed-loop neurotechnology, specifically control signals of EEG-based brain-computer interfaces, including movement-related phenomena, steady-state visual evoked potentials, somatosensory evoked potentials, and event-related potentials, as well as different feedback modalities such as functional electrical stimulation and assistive robotics. The main application areas of his research are neurological disorders (stroke, ALS, PD, migraine), psychology, sport science.

Uroš Konstantinović

Uroš Konstantinović is a Ph.D. candidate with a background in cognitive psychology and individual differences. His main research interests are focused on executive functions, especially inhibitory control and its representations in the human brain. Currently, he investigates the effects of tES over the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and right inferior frontal gyrus on different inhibitory control functions.

Marija Stanković

Marija Stankovic is a Ph.D. candidate with a background in special education and rehabilitation. Her main research interests include exploring the potential of NIBS for the treatment of cognitive impairment in addictions and other behavioural disorders. She currently investigates the effects of tES on risk-taking and decision-making abilities in at-risk gamblers. Besides that, she is interested in applying tES for memory modulation.

Dunja Paunović

Dunja Paunović is a Ph.D. candidate with a research interest in human memory processes. Specifically, she works on isolating neurophysiological markers of mechanisms that lead to successful encoding and retrieval. She is exploring the possibility of varying the impact of non-invasive brain stimulation on memory performance by tailoring the frequency of stimulation protocols to individual brain rhythms obtained from EEG recordings.

Nikola Lalović

Nikola Lalović is head of the Cabinet for Brain Stimulation at University Clinical Center of Serbia, Clinic for Psychiatry in Belgrade, Serbia. As a specialist in psychiatry and clinical pharmacology, he is involved in clinical trials of new neuromodulation therapies (pharmacological and brain stimulation) in psychiatry. He has expertise in biomedical informatics and is focused on meta-analytic research techniques.

Jasmina Vuksanović

Jasmina Vuksanović is an assistant research professor focusing on the neurorehabilitation of cognitive and language functions. She aims to understand language and cognitive impairments from developmental, aging, and clinical perspectives.

Milan Jelić

Milan Jelić is an assistant research professor with a background in sport science. He is interested in motor control, neurophysiology, and neuromodulation.

Milica Ninković

Milica Ninković is a librarian at the IMR. She is in charge of all aspects of the research library as well as administrating the institutional repository – RIMI. As a repository administrator, Milica is responsible for performing administration and maintenance tasks that include creating new IR collections and workflows, conducting quality checks of IR submissions, monitoring metadata integrity and quality, using metadata sets, performing advanced copyright research and data entry etc. All these tasks demand a certain level of competence in Open Science, Open Access, Open Data, FAIR data, Intellectual property, Copyright as well as Research Data Management and Curation.

Aleks Mladenović

Aleks Mladenović is a junior researcher focusing on implementing the open science approach and practices within the TWINNIBS project. His main areas of interest include neuropsychology and neuroscience, as well as social psychology and psychotherapy.

Inga Griškova Bulanova

Inga Griškova-Bulanova is a researcher interested in the nature and significance of the periodic brain responses to auditory stimulation; this line of research spans both human studies (involving various forms of brain-state modulations, i.e., sleep, inhibition/activation with neuromodulation, task-induced effects) and usage of animal models (for precise localization, pharmacological interventions, and connection monitoring). She works on EEG applications for individualized guidance of training, therapy, and treatment – these will encompass research on brain-computer interface, neurofeedback, and brain stimulation approaches. She investigates associations between subjective and objective measures of resting-state activity, as it is crucial for the field of brain imaging in order to assure correct interpretation of the observed results.

Iris Žeželj

Iris Žeželj is an associate professor at the University of Belgrade. Her area of interest are processes that contribute to different forms of biases, from macro to micro-level: group biases (gender, ethnic, racial), biases in memory, beliefs, and self-knowledge. She has led or co-led several international projects on these topics. In her research, she combines laboratory experiments, large-scale cross-cultural studies, and content analyses.

Katarina Draginić

Katarina Draginić is a junior researcher focused on communicating science and exploring adequate ways and forms to convey the importance of research outputs to the broader public- within the TWINNIBS project. Her research interest centers around the fields of social cognition and belief systems, while she is currently obtaining a master’s degree in social psychology on irrational beliefs and a tendency towards overestimation of the quality and depth of one’s explanatory knowledge.

Bojana Đukić

Bojana Đukić is a medical doctor in the process of specializing in psychiatry and a Ph.D. candidate. Her main research interests include exploring the potential of TMS for the treatment of psychiatric diseases.

Milica Manojlović

Milica Manojlović is a junior researcher interested in memory formation and non-invasive brain stimulation techniques most suitable for researching the said topic. She is currently obtaining a master’s degree related to comparing the benefits of stimulating parietal brain regions during different parts of the memory formation process using high density theta oscillatory transcranial direct current stimulation.

Ivana Paunović

Ivana Paunović is a financial assistant with expertise in finance and accounting, working to advance financial reporting and financial accounting for international projects.

Teodora Puletić

Teodora Puletić is a Legal Advisor at IMR where she works predominantly in fields of Contract and Employment law. In January of 2023. she started working as a Legal Advisor for project TWINNIBS at the IMR where she provides various legal advice and works on drafting contracts.

Jelena Višnjić

Jelena Višnjić is a project assistant supporting the day-to-day administrative aspects of the TWINNIBS project. She is interested in everything that can bring new experiences and skills in a future administration and international projects.

Miroslav Kovač

A highly skilled and experienced IT professional with over 15 years of experience in the industry. He has a strong background in network and system administration, information security, and customer support, and has a proven track record of delivering high-quality solutions to customers.

Miroslav held various IT positions where he gained extensive experience in network and system administration, information security, and customer support.

Danka Purić

Danka Purić is an assistant professor at the University of Belgrade. Her primary research interests are individual differences in personality, cognition, and bordering phenomena, with a special focus on executive functions and, more recently, thinking styles. She is particularly interested in different ways of measuring and assessing human abilities and traits on both a theoretical and a methodological/ practical plain. She is devoted to open science practices.

Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance, Region Hovestaden REGION H, Denmark

Hartwig Siebner

Hartwig R. Siebner is a professor, head of research, and the lead of the DRCMR team. He studies causal dynamic interactions between brain regions in the human brain and explores how causal network dynamics support human brain function with a focus on motor control and decision-making. He combines advanced functional brain mapping techniques with non-invasive transcranial brain stimulation (NTBS), training, or pharmacological manipulations. This “causal” research strategy enables him to identify and shape the network dynamics that determine human brain function in health and disease.

Axel Thielscher

Axel Thielscher is a professor with a vision to transform transcranial brain stimulation (TBS) into an effective medical treatment by personalizing established TBS methods and introducing novel TBS approaches with complementary application profiles. He aims to provide basic neuroscience research with precise interventional tools to demonstrate causally the link from brain activity to behaviour. His research interests revolve around interfacing engineering with neuroscience research and applications. This includes the integration of TBS with brain imaging modalities as well as computational dosimetry methods. He explores the mechanisms of action of TBS and identifies the factors that cause variability in the stimulation outcome and hamper the clinical efficacy of TBS. His results show that the physical TBS fields strongly depend on the individual anatomy, making an intuitive targeting and dose control impossible and suggesting the need for advanced dosing approaches. In addition, he uses neuroimaging to shed light on the stimulation effects at the brain network level and to characterize how the neural TBS effects depend on the physical TBS fields and the brain state.
He aims to translate the results from basic research to clinical TBS applications by providing experimenters, engineers, and clinicians worldwide with validated and useful methods and tools for the personalization of TBS. He is heading the SimNIBS project (Simulation of Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation) that developed the first open-source software pipeline for individualized FEM calculations for brain stimulation based on MR images, and that is now widely used in the field.

Karam Sidaros

Karam Sidaros is a Research Manager at DRCMR. His current interests within research management and administration are focused on research support “from cradle to grave” including fundraising, budgeting, grant management, reporting, ethics, data protection, and contract negotiation. Karam is also interested in people management, career development, financial reporting and controlling in a hospital environment

Leo Tomasevic

Leo Tomasevic is a research fellow interested in sensory-motor system function and connectivity. In his studies, he uses multimodal approaches combining electroencephalography (EEG) with other techniques, for example, brain stimulation, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS).

Armita Faghani

Armita Faghani Jadidi is a postdoc fellow interested in neurorehabilitation techniques and biological signal processing. She has experience with several modalities, including but not limited to EEG and TMS, to investigate the underlying mechanism of neurological disorders (e.g., chronic pain) and therapeutic non-invasive intervention. She currently focuses on integrating multimodal brain mapping (MRI, EEG) and personalized brain stimulation (TMS) in terms of targeting and dosing into treatment approaches.

Lasse Christiansen

Lasse Christiansen is a research fellow interested in the motor system in humans to understand the physiological mechanisms that underpin sensorimotor plasticity during motor learning and neurorehabilitation. He employs a modulation-mapping approach to causally interrogate and shape the motor system with the goal of developing mechanistically specific, versatile non-invasive brain stimulation protocols to improve motor function. He enjoys digging into the intricate details of his favorite brain stimulation modality – Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation.

Mikkel Vinding

Mikkel Vinding is a research fellow focused on EEG and MEG investigations into the functional changes in Parkinson’s disease. At DRCMR, he is involved in projects mapping the functional changes in brain activity in Levodopa induced dyskinesias using EEG and TMS-EEG and developing TMS as therapy for motor symptoms in Parkinson’s disease.

Mikkel Malling Beck

Mikkel Beck is a post doc interested in how the human central nervous system controls movement and what happens when we become better or worse at it, e.g., when we practice a new motor skill or if we are faced with a movement disorder. He investigates this using mostly electrophysiological techniques such as electroencephalography (EEG) and brain stimulation, specifically transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). His current work involves using combinations of different techniques (such as TMS and EEG) to help inform and individualize the targeting and dosing of neuro-modulatory interventions and therapeutics.

Mads Just Madsen

Mads AJ Madsen is a post doc interested in clinical neurophysiological testing of the sensorimotor system and how it reacts to perturbations such as lesions or during recovery. He currently investigates these phenomena in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients using TMS motor mapping coupled with high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Moreover, he is interested in personalized non-invasive brain stimulation – both TES and TMS – as treatments in neurological disorders such as stroke and MS.

Center for Mind and Brain University of Trento UNITN, Italy

Carlo Miniussi

Carlo Miniussi is a full professor and a lead of the CIMeC team. He is an expert in the study of cognitive functions and in the use of electroencephalography and non-invasive brain stimulation techniques to explore and understand the neural systems that support cognitive functions in the human brain. He has extensive experience in the development and application of behavioural and cognitive paradigms. He has also worked with multiple neuroimaging and neurophysiological methodologies (EEG, TMS, tES), as well as integrated brain functional imaging (co-registration TMS-EEG; tDCS-EEG).

Luigi Cattaneo

Luigi Cattaneo is an associate professor focused on research in the field of systems physiology and cognitive neuroscience for many years. He is mainly interested in understanding the biological and physiological correlates of behavior in humans, especially movement control. The topic of his research is sensorimotor transformations for movements of the upper limb and face. Particular attention is given to how complex categories such as the geometry of objects, the vision of biological movement, language, and numerical quantities are represented in the motor system. Recently, he has focused more on the ability of the human brain to establish flexible sensorimotor associations, based on abstract rules. Luigi also tests his psychophysiological hypotheses and theoretical models on groups of patients in a clinical neurology setting. As a main research tool, he uses TMS, of which he has deep knowledge. He is familiar with and have also used other methods of non-invasive brain stimulation (tDCS), the study of motion kinematics, the spectral analysis of EEG and event-related evoked potentials, structural neuroimaging (tractography), and functional (fMRI) techniques.

Paolo Belardinelli

Paolo Belardinelli is an assistant professor interested in understanding how brain responses to an external stimulus are differentially affected by ongoing brain states. His main research focus is on how neural plasticity can be modulated in an optimal way by applying brain state-dependent, closed loop real time network modulation. To this aim, he performs non-invasive brain stimulation and neurophysiology methods (EEG-TMS: TMS triggered by EEG states) in adult patients and healthy individuals. Paolo’s research interests are also related to new real-time application of EEG-TMS, finding a deeper insight into the relationship between anatomy and function and defining what represents a “brain state” which is optimal for stimulation. He is also interested in systematically examining how the state of a brain network right before the stimulus influences both muscular and cortical outcomes.

Vittorio Iacovella

Vittorio Iacovella is a team member who focuses on discovering and digesting new and original open science approaches and practices as well as presenting them to the local academic community.

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich LMU, Germany

Walter Paulus

Walter Paulus is one of the pioneers and leading experts in the field of clinical neurophysiology and transcranial brain stimulation. He was the driving force behind the introduction and further perfecting of tDCS and tACS techniques for research and clinical use.

Zahra Soltaninejad

Zahra Soltaninejad is a post doc interested in using non-invasive brain stimulation techniques in clinical settings, as well as conducting cognitive rehabilitation on healthy individuals and patients. She finds the combination of brain stimulation and cognitive rehabilitation as interventions, as well as the recording of changes via fMRI/MRI, very exciting. She is also trained and certified in psychotherapy. Currently, she works on restoring motor function in Parkinson patients using rotating field stimulations combined with TMS.

Gorazd Weiss

Gorazd Weiss is a senior expert and Head of Unit “Research Policy and Development” at ZSI. His key competencies include research on RTDI policies, Development, RRI and Open Science, social entrepreneurship as well as the coordination and management of international RTDI cooperation projects. Since 2010, Gorazd has conducted dozens of trainings, workshops, info sessions and summer schools on the following topics: successful proposal writing for researchers, responsible research and innovation for different target groups (policy makers, researchers, Higher Education Institutions, Horizon 2020 National Contact Points, H2020 Widening Countries, Civil Society Organizations (NGOs) and SMEs). Gorazd continues to be involved in many RTDI projects around the world, from the European Union, Eastern Partnership (EaP) and Western Balkan countries, to Central Asia, Brazil, India, and the Russian Federation. Between 2008 and 2019 he was also involved in the organisation of several scientific events (workshops, focus groups, international conferences) for researchers and policy makers, on topics such as sustainable development, energy, climate change, migration, and NCP systems, etc.). Between 2005 and 2019 he was involved in more than 30 international RTDI projects funded by European Commission (FP5, FP6, FP7, H2020, EuropeAid, Interreg), other international (UNESCO, UNIDO) and national funded projects as a researcher, senior research project manager, senior expert or Coordinator.

Philipp Brugner

Philipp Brugner is a project manager and researcher at ZSI. He is an expert on strategic project communications, exploitation, and impact development, with demonstrable skills and competencies in designing training formats for project applicants, leading proposals, and devising impact pathways. He was/is leading the DEC agenda for several Twinning projects.

Andrea Christiane Mayr

Andrea Christiane Mayr is working as senior project and a financial manager at ZSI. She has a lot of experience in evaluation, monitoring, and co-ordination of projects and programmes as well as consultancy and financial, project management. She was engaged in many projects in Southeastern Europe, as a coordinator. She was also a consultant for the Austrian Federal Ministry for Foreign Affairs on the implementation and execution of development projects in Southeastern Europe in the fields of higher education and social policy.