Dr Zakaria Ouhaz is a Newton International Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford. He received his doctorate in Neuroscience from Cadi Ayyad University, Morocco and completed his postdoctoral training in the Lab of Professor Anna Mitchell at the University of Oxford. A Royal Society Newton International Fellowship is supporting Dr Ouhaz studies.
The aim of Dr Ouhaz’ research is to understand the functional importance and underlying mechanisms associated with cortico-thalamo-cortical interactions in some of our daily cognitive abilities, e.g. learning new information, memory recall and adaptive decision-making. Dr Ouhaz is particularly interested in the thalamic nuclei of the dorsal thalamus. He uses a combination of research techniques, including behavioural and cognitive neuroscience testing, rodent’s electrophysiology, lesion studies and pharmacogenetics, brain imaging and neuroanatomical tracing studies. He is currently investigating how, and in what ways the interactions between the mediodorsal thalamus and interconnected neural regions (especially cortex) contribute to cognitive functioning using rodents. Dr Ouhaz also studies cognitive abilities in following damage in the dorsal thalamus, e.g. after stroke or schizophrenia.
