Dr. Elena Mikulskaya is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Manchester, where she leads the Manchester site of the Deep and Frequent Phenotyping (DFP) study. The DFP is a flagship UK-wide multicentre project designed to identify sensitive biomarkers of early progression in prodromal Alzheimer’s disease through an intensive longitudinal neuroimaging protocol, comprising five structural MRI scans and one simultaneous PET-MRI scan over a 12-month period. This approach enables future proof-of-concept trials for disease-modifying therapies.
Her current research focuses on developing advanced high-resolution diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) techniques to assess white matter integrity in medial temporal lobe subregions, including the hippocampus, and their associations with memory performance. Previously, she contributed to multimodal neuroimaging studies in clinical populations, including the STRATA2 project involving intensive serial MRI and PET scanning in patients with first-episode psychosis.
Elena holds a Laurea Magistrale in General and Experimental Psychology from the University of Florence, Italy, and a PhD in Psychology from the University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia. Her doctoral research developed novel experimental EEG paradigms to advance understanding of substance-related neurocognitive deficits.