Team
Meet the team
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Markus Aswendt
Markus Aswendt
Markus is an expert in MR neuroimaging and its application to investigate mechanisms of spontaneous recovery after stroke in mice. He holds a PhD in neuroscience and has worked in international labs and funding consortia. Markus is also the head of the central core facility Neuro-MRI of the University of Cologne.
Julian Cramer
Julian Cramer
2025 – ongoing PhD thesis on diffusion changes in the internal capsule related to recovery after stroke.
Christoph Hoeren
Christoph Hoeren
2026 – ongoing Bachelor thesis on histological analysis of white matter plasticity after internal capsule stroke and tDCS.
Fatemeh Mahani
Fatemeh Mahani
2022 – ongoing PhD thesis on structure-function coupling in relation to timing and stroke lesion size and location.
Daniel Mertens
Daniel Mertens
2023 – ongoing Bachelor thesis on expanding AIDAmri for rat brain MRI and the Sigma rat atlas.
Motahare Mousavi
Motahare Mousavi
2024 – ongoing MD thesis on the role of astrogliosis in secondary neurodegeneration after stroke.
Florian Pietsch
Florian Pietsch
2024 – ongoing Bachelor thesis on behavioral phenotyping of motor deficits after internal capsule stroke.
Alina Rimscha
Alina Rimscha
2026 – ongoing Bachelor thesis on the histological characterization of tDCS-induced white matter changes.
Parvathi Satheesh
Parvathi Satheesh
2026 – ongoing Research assistant responsible for molecular biology, gene expression, and RNA sequencing experiments.
Esma Secen
Esma Secen
2026 – ongoing PhD thesis on neuromodulation of descending motor tracts to improve functional recovery after stroke.
Neda Rahimiverki
Neda Rahimiverki
2026 – ongoing Master thesis on the application of TMS after stroke in mice.
Agnes Rudowski
Agnes Rudowski
2026 – ongoing Technician responsible for animal housing, histology, and keeping the lab organized.
Franziska Ziolkowski
Franziska Ziolkowski
2023 – ongoing Master thesis on recurrence plot quantification of dynamic functional connectivity changes after stroke related to motor recovery.
Alumni
PhD thesis (Cologne, Neuroscience): A unified framework for multimodla animal studies: data management, MRI quality control, and proportional recovery in mice
Next position: Postdoc (Research Data Management group led by Dr. Klaus Kaiser, University Hospital Freiburg)
Master thesis (Bremen, Neuroscience): Long-term cognitive and motor deficits after internal capsule stroke in mice
Bachelor thesis (Cologne, Biology): Histological characterization of stroke induced changes in the white matter
Master thesis (Cologne, Neuroscience): Spontaneous recovery after ischemic stroke: effects of stroke location and reactive astrocytes on thalamic secondary neurodegeneration in mice
Student assistant: histology
Next position: Master of Biological Sciences (University of Cologne)
Bachelor thesis (Neuroscience): Characterization of secondary neurodegeneration in white matter tracts after experimental stroke
Next position: Internship pharmaceutical industry
Student assistant: AIDA tools support and further development (adding BIDS-compatibility)
Next position: Master studies
Student assistant: histology
Next position: Bachelor studies in Neuroscience (University of Cologne)
Master thesis (Biology): Chemogenetic manipulation of the rubrospinal tract in mice
Next position: Master studies in Neuroscience (University of Cologne)
Research assistant: AIDA tools support and further development (debugging and containerization); database maintenance
Bachelor thesis: Characterization of secondary neurodegeneration in the spinal cord after experimental stroke
Next position: Master thesis (lab of Frank Bradke, Bonn)
Internship: AIDAmri
Master thesis: Identification and manipulation of spasticity-related extrapyramidal motor nuclei in mice
Next position: PhD student (lab of Johannes Vogt, University of Cologne)
Bachelor thesis (Biology)
Student assistant: histology
Research assistant and master thesis: Longitudinal gene expression analysis in experimental stroke
Next position: PhD student (lab of Johannes Vogt, University of Cologne)
Bachelor thesis (Biology): Automated movement analysis of mouse beam walking using neural networks
Student assistant: AIDA tools
Student assistant: histology
Next position: Research associate (lab of Michael Wenzel, University Hospital Bonn)
Student assistant: video analysis
Student assistant and Bachelor thesis: Neuronal tracing in mice with cortical stroke
Next position: PhD student (lab of Natalia Kononenko, University of Cologne)
Student assistant: histology
Biological technical assistant
Student assistant: behavior analysis
Next position: PhD student (lab of Michael Barbe, University Hospital Cologne)
Biological technical assistant
Next position: BTA (Lab of Roland Ullrich, University Hospital Cologne)
PhD thesis: A versatile registration and analysis pipeline for multimodal brain imaging data
Next position: Head of Product Management (SYNLAB Holding Deutschland GmbH)
PhD thesis: Evaluation of spasticity in experimental models of ischemic stroke
Next position: Medical science Liaison Manager und CIDP (Argenx)