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Prof. Dr. rer. med. Natalia Chechko

Principal investigator Public relations team member Equal opportunity committee member

Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Faculty of Medicine, RWTH Aachen University

0000-0001-9226-6196

Natalia Chechko

Natalia Chechko’s research group investigates neuroscientific and bioscientific aspects of various psychiatric disorders, including depression, schizophrenia, anxiety disorders and autism spectrum disorder. Cerebral dysfunctions in women of reproductive age who suffer from affective disorders, e.g. postpartum depression, psychosomatic illnesses or chronic pain disorders, are a particular focus. The aim is to record emotional and cognitive dysfunctions multimodally in order to enable early detection and predict the response to therapy in affected women. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is used to analyse cerebral dysfunctions during visual, olfactory and nociceptive stimulation. Psychological test procedures and laboratory measurement techniques, such as blood serum analyses and hair sample analyses, are also used. Other influencing factors such as genetic disposition are also taken into account.

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Projects

A04: Implicit chemosensory threat signals as stimulators of amygdala hyperresponsiveness in AMD

Ute Habel Natalia Chechko RWTH Aachen Negative valence system Biological Psychiatry Clinical Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
We make use of threat-related chemosensory stimuli, namely body odor, acquired during aggressive behavior (boxing) and unconsciously perceived, to investigate heightened amygdala responses to threat stimuli in aggressive patients. Body odors have the major advantage of being directly projected into the amygdala, circumventing cortical preprocessing, thereby enabling the differentiation of mechanisms between bottom-up altered limbic processing and top-down modulated altered cognitive evaluation. We investigate the potential of such body odors to bias responses to ambiguous visual social cues towards threat and their effects during peripersonal space (PPS) violation where they may be especially relevant.

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RWTH Aachen

Natalia Chechko Thomas Frodl Ute Habel Kerstin Konrad Klaus Mathiak Vanessa Reindl Marc Spehr Lisa Wagels Carmen Weidler Jana Zweerings Christiane Licht Christina Neczewicz Nick Worm

RWTH Aachen University is one of Europe’s leading institutions for science and engineering education. Renowned for its strong emphasis on research and innovation, RWTH Aachen collaborates closely with industry and is part of the prestigious IDEA League. The university offers a wide range of programs and is known for its cutting-edge facilities and interdisciplinary approach to solving global challenges.