Dr Claire Rostron

Lecturer

Profile

I joined the Life Sciences Department at the Open University in April 2007.

I did my BPS accredited undergraduate Psychology degree at the University of Strathclyde and went on to study for a Neuroscience PhD with Professor Philip Winn at the University of St Andrews.  The research I was involved in aimed to understand the role of the brainstem pedunculopontine tegmental nucleus in higher order (or executive) cognitive processes, processes usually associated with the cortex.  Following an (incorrect) diagnosis of laboratory animal allergy I went to the University of Aberdeen to work with Dr John Ross on a large multidisciplinary HSE funded research project to investigate the long term health effects of occupational diving.  My role on this project was to set-up and conduct neuropsychological testing.  I then returned to work with Professor Winn investigating attention functions of the pedunculopontine tegmental nucleus before moving to the University of Abertay to gain some teaching experience.  Here I taught 2nd year undergraduate Biological Psychology and honours year Neuropsychopharamcology.

Qualifications

BA(Hons) Psychology, Upper Second Class, University of Strathclyde (1998)

PhD "Neural Mechanisms of Executive Function" University of St Andrews (2002)

Teaching Interests

Biological Psychology, Neuroscience, Neuropsychology, Mental Health

I was production module team chair for SDK228, The Science of the Mind: Investigating Mental Health and oversee a large and diverse production module team and have continued into presentation as module team chair. 

I have also worked as production team chair for SXL288 Attention and the Brain which converted my research interests directly into a practical science teaching topic.  I have continued to work as a topic specialist during presentation of this module.

I am currently working as a module team member on producing a new version of SD329 Signals and Perception, responsible for the Touch and Pain material.

 I am a presentation module team member for SD226 Biological Psychology and SD805 Issues In Brain & Behaviour (Addiction and Neural Ageing).

In addition to this I currently hold 3 Associate Lecturer posts one each for: SDK228, SD226 and SD329.

Research Interests

My research interests lie primarily in Behavioural Neuroscience/Biological Psychology.  I am interested in understanding the brain mechanisms supporting cognition and in the valid and reliable capture of cognitive function and dysfunction using animal and human assessments.  I am most interested in taking a "problem solving" approach in animal research, trying to design tests that characterise human functioning as closely as possible.  At present, I am focusing on the accurate capture of the human attention phenomenon "Inhibition of Return" but  ongoing experiments have been conducted using latent inhibition and pavlovian signtracking.

Publications (note - maiden name "Taylor"):

Current Research

Acetylcholine and attention: Investigating the role of cholinergic brain sites in the control of visuo-spatial attention.  This project is a 3 year PhD studentship funded by The Open University.