Ana M.G. Manea, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiology and the Center for Magnetic Resonance Research (CMRR) at the University of Minnesota. Her training began with a BSc in Psychology and Neuroscience at Maastricht University, continued with an MSc Research Master in Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience at Maastricht University, The Netherlands, and culminated in a PhD in the Graduate Program in Cognitive Science at the University of Minnesota, where she trained at CMRR. After completing her PhD, she joined the University of Minnesota faculty as an Assistant Professor in Radiology.
Her predoctoral work spanned Neuroscience, Economics, Robotics, Psychology, and Computational Neuroscience with both humans and nonhuman primates (NHPs), applying EEG, fNIRS, brain stimulation (notably TMS), and a range of MRI approaches from decision-making fMRI at 3T to layer-specific fMRI at 7T and ultrahigh field MRI at 10.5T. During her PhD, she employed cutting-edge ultrahigh-field imaging in NHPs to map whole-brain temporal and spatial dynamics, develop a first longitudinal NHP connectome model of addiction at ultrahigh field, and conduct ecologically valid studies in freely moving animals; she also contributed to NHP coil testing and optimization with CMRR engineers.
In her lab she combines large‑scale electrophysiology, ultrahigh‑field MRI (10.5T and 16.4T), behavioral analysis, viral tracers, optical imaging, and computational modeling to bridge methods, scales, and species, with the goal of maximizing the translational potential of high‑field MRI. Current projects include (1) large-scale neural recordings in NHPs using novel dynamic tasks, (2) neural timescales and naturalistic foraging in freely moving NHPs, (3) preclinical studies of cocaine and opioid use disorders, and (4) longitudinal behavioral and neuroimaging sampling across species (marmosets and macaques).
