Prof. I. Tendolkar (Indira)

Indira Tendolkar is professor in psychiatry and head of the medical department psychiatry at the Radboud University Medical Center. In her research focusing on clinical neuroscience in psychiatry and her cinical background as neurologist and psychiatrist, IT has developed novel experimental designs testing neutral and emotional forms of declarative memory using a wide array of electrophysiological and neuroimaging methods. While exploring the fundamental cognitive neuroscience of emotional and non-emotional forms of declarative memory in one line of research, IT has also focused on the causal relationship between a dysfunction of this memory system and stress-related psychiatric disorders. This has also resulted in participation in campus wide prevention actions such as the Healthy Brain pillar or the Prevention Hub of the Radboud University Medical Center. Initially, IT´s research group focused on structural and functional changes of the declarative memory system early in the course of depression. Next, I. Tendolkar and her group extended their work unraveling the neural underpinnings of chronic and even treatment resistant depression. Her group provided first evidence that the functional activity of brain regions mediating declarative memory is altered both as a function of state or trait early in the course of depression. Moreover, IT has been able to extend ongoing research on the neural correlates of memory bias in depression and recently has initiated a line of research related to cognitive bias modification and the use of neuromodulation in combination with experimental cognitive interventions. Using structural and resting state MRI techniques, the research group has focused on chronic depression in particular on for example the effects of convulsion therapies. Currently IT is trying to expand the non-invasive neuromodulation treatments to psychiatric symptoms in a transdiagnostic manner.