Carina R. Oehrn, M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Carina Oehrn

Assistant Professor of Neurological Surgery

  • Core Faculty, Center for Neuroscience
She/Her
Non-motor symptoms in Parkinson’s disease; intracranial neural recordings in humans; adaptive deep brain stimulation
 

Carina Oehrn is a cognitive neuroscientist and physician. Her research focuses on the neural networks underlying non-motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease (PD). Carina's expertise lies in intracranial human recordings and deep brain stimulation (DBS). She employs these advanced techniques to investigate basal ganglia-cortical circuits during cognitive and affective processing in individuals with PD.

She received her undergraduate degree in Neuroscience from the University of Cologne, Germany, and her master’s degree in Brain and Mind Sciences from University College London and the École normale supérieure in Paris. Carina completed her medical studies and PhD at the University of Cologne and Bonn, where her research focused on prefrontal-hippocampal interactions during executive functions. Throughout this time, she undertook research stays at the Montreal Neurological Institute and the University of Sydney, as well as clinical volunteering in Shanghai, China, and The Gambia.

She then received funding for her own research group in Marburg, Germany, to investigate DBS effects on cognitive processing in PD. In 2021, she received the Parkinson Fellowship of the Thiemann Foundation to join Philip Starr at the University of California, San Francisco, where she focused on developing algorithms for adaptive deep brain stimulation. At UC Davis, Carina studies the neural signatures of cognitive and emotional processing in PD and develops adaptive DBS therapies for these symptoms.

Select Publications

Book Chapters
  1. Oehrn, C. (2023). What Are the Pros and Cons of ROI Versus Whole-Brain Analysis of iEEG Data? In: Axmacher, N. (Ed.). Intracranial EEG: A Guide for Cognitive Neuroscientists. Springer, pp. 475–486. ISBN: 978-3031209093.
     
  2. Oehrn, C., Weber, I. (2017). Mechanisms of deep brain stimulation. In: Voges, J., Timmermann, L. (Eds.). Deep Brain Stimulation (in German). De Gruyter, pp. 73–88. ISBN: 9783110458763.
     
Journal Articles
  1. Oehrn, C. R., Cernera, S., Hammer, L. H., Shcherbakova, M., Yao, J., Hahn, A., Wang, S., Ostrem, J. L., Little, S., and Starr, P. A. (2024) ' Chronic adaptive deep brain stimulation versus conventional stimulation in Parkinson's disease: a blinded randomized feasibility trial', Nature Medicine. 2024 Aug 19; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-024-03196-z
     
  2. Salehi N., Nahrgang S., Petershagen W., Dembek T.A., Pedrosa D., Timmermann L., Weber I., Oehrn, C. R. (2024) 'Theta frequency deep brain stimulation in the subthalamic nucleus improves working memory in Parkinson’s disease', Brain. 2024 Apr 4;147(4):1190-1196. DOI: 10.1093/brain/awad433.
     
  3. San Luciano M., Oehrn C.R., Wang S.S., Tolmie J.S., Wiltshire A., Graff R.E., Zhu J., Starr P.A.. Protocol for combined N-of-1 trials to assess cerebellar neurostimulation for movement disorders in children and young adults with dyskinetic cerebral palsy. BMC Neurol. 2024 Apr 29;24(1):145. DOI: 10.1186/s12883-024-03633- z.
     
  4. Oehrn, C. R., Cernera, S., Hammer, L. H., Shcherbakova, M., Yao, J., Hahn, A., Wang, S., Ostrem, J. L., Little, S., and Starr, P. A. (2023) 'Personalized chronic adaptive deep brain stimulation outperforms conventional stimulation in Parkinson's disease', medRxiv, vol. 2023, no. Aug 8, pp. 2023.08.03.23293450. DOI: 10.1101/2023.08.03.23293450.
     
  5. Calvano, A., Timmermann, L., Loehrer, P. A., Oehrn, C. R., and Weber, I. (2023). 'Binaural acoustic stimulation in patients with Parkinson's disease'. Front Neurol, 14( 5): 1167006. DOI: 10.3389/fneur.2023.1167006.
     
  6. Wong, J. K., berg, H. S., Wang, D. D., Richardson, R. M., Halpern, C. H., Krinke, L., Arlotti, M., Rossi, L., Priori, A., Marceglia, S., Gilron, R., Cavanagh, J. F., Judy, J. W., Miocinovic, S., Devergnas, A. D., Sillitoe, R. V., Cernera, S., Oehrn, C. R., Gunduz, A., Goodman, W. K., Petersen, E. A., Bronte-Stewart, H., Raike, R. S., Malekmohammadi, M., Greene, D., Heiden, P., Tan, H., Volkmann, J., Voon, V., Li, L., Sah, P., Coyne, T., Silburn, P. A., Kubu, C. S., Wexler, A., Chandler, J., Provenza, N. R., Heilbronner, S. R., Luciano, M. S., Rozell, C. J., Fox, M. D., de Hemptinne, C., Henderson, J. M., Sheth, S. A., and Okun, M. S. (2023). 'Proceedings of the 10th annual deep brain stimulation think tank: Advances in cutting edge technologies, artificial intelligence, neuromodulation, neuroethics, interventional psychiatry, and women in neuromodulation'. Front Hum Neurosci, 16(Jan 27): 1084782. DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.1084782.
     
  7. Costa, M., Lozano-Soldevilla, D., Gil-Nagel, A., Toledano, R., Oehrn, C. R., Kunz, L., Yebra, M., Mendez- Bertolo, C., Stieglitz, L., Sarnthein, J., Axmacher, N., Moratti, S., and Strange, B. A. (2022). 'Aversive memory formation in humans involves an amygdala-hippocampus phase code'. Nature communications, 13(1): 6403. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-33828-2.
     
  8. Ansó, J., Benjaber, M., Parks, B., Parker, S., Oehrn, C. R., Petrucci, M., Gilron, R., Little, S., Wilt, R., Bronte- Stewart, H., Gunduz, A., Borton, D., Starr, P. A., and Denison, T. (2022). 'Concurrent stimulation and sensing in bi-directional brain interfaces: a multi-site translational experience'. Journal of neural engineering, 19(2). DOI: 10.1088/1741-2552/ac59a3.
     
  9. Loehrer, P. A., Weber, I., Oehrn, C. R., Nettersheim, F. S., Dafsari, H. S., Knake, S., Tittgemeyer, M., Timmermann, L., and Belke, M. (2022). 'Microstructural alterations predict impaired bimanual control in Parkinson's disease'. Brain communications, 4(3): fcac137. DOI: 10.1093/braincomms/fcac137.
     
  10. Oehrn, C. R., Molitor, L., Krause, K., Niehaus, H., Schmidt, L., Hakel, L., et al. (2022). 'Non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation in epilepsy patients enhances cooperative behavior in the prisoner's dilemma task'. Scientific Reports, 12(1): 10255. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-14237-3.
     
  11. Weber, I. and Oehrn, C. R. (2022). 'A Waveform-Independent Measure of Recurrent Neural Activity'. Frontiers in neuroinformatics, 16: 800116. DOI: 10.3389/fninf.2022.800116.
     
  12. Weber, I. and Oehrn, C. R. (2022). 'NoLiTiA: An Open-Source Toolbox for Non-linear Time Series Analysis'.
    Frontiers in neuroinformatics, 16: 876012. DOI: 10.3389/fninf.2022.876012.
     
  13. Oever, S. ten, Sack, A. T., Oehrn, C. R., and Axmacher, N. (2021). 'An engram of intentionally forgotten information'. Nature communications, 12(1): 6443. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-26713-x.
     
  14. Oehrn, C. R., Schönenkorb, J., Timmermann, L., Nenadić, I., Weber, I., and Grant, P. (2021). 'Schizotypy in Parkinson's disease predicts dopamine-associated psychosis'. Scientific Reports, 11(1): 759. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-80765-5.
     
  15. Busch, J. L., Haeussler, F. S., Domahs, F., Timmermann, L., Weber, I., and Oehrn, C. R. (2021). 'German normative data with naming latencies for 283 action pictures and 600 action verbs'. Behavior Research Methods, 54(2): 649-662. DOI: 10.3758/s13428-021-01647-w.
     
  16. Weber, I., Niehaus, H., Krause, K., Molitor, L., Peper, M., Schmidt, L., Hakel, L., Timmermann, L., Menzler, K., Knake, S., and Oehrn, C. R. (2021). 'Trust your gut: vagal nerve stimulation in humans improves reinforcement learning'. Brain communications. DOI: 10.1093/braincomms/fcab039.
     
  17. Loehrer, P. A., Nettersheim, F. S., Oehrn, C. R., Homberg, F., Tittgemeyer, M., Timmermann, L., and Weber,
    I. (2021). 'Increased prefrontal top-down control in older adults predicts motor performance and age-group association'. NeuroImage, 118383. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118383.
     
  18. Dembek, T. A., Roediger, J., Horn, A., Reker, P., Oehrn, C., Dafsari, H. S., Li, N., Kühn, A. A., Fink, G. R., Visser-Vandewalle, V., Barbe, M. T., and Timmermann, L. (2019). 'Probabilistic sweet spots predict motor outcome for deep brain stimulation in Parkinson disease'. Annals of neurology, 86(4): 527–538. DOI: 10.1002/ana.25567.
     
  19. Oehrn, C. R., Fell, J., Baumann, C., Rosburg, T., Ludowig, E., Kessler, H., Hanslmayr, S., and Axmacher, N. (2018). 'Direct Electrophysiological Evidence for Prefrontal Control of Hippocampal Processing during Voluntary Forgetting'. Current biology: CB, 28(18): 3016-3022.e4. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.07.042.
     
  20. Carl, B., Bopp, M., Gjorgjevski, M., Oehrn, C., Timmermann, L., and Nimsky, C. (2018). 'Implementation of Intraoperative Computed Tomography for Deep Brain Stimulation: Pitfalls and Optimization of Workflow, Accuracy, and Radiation Exposure'. World neurosurgery. DOI: 10.1016/j.wneu.2018.12.079.
     
  21. van de Nieuwenhuijzen, M. E., Axmacher, N., Fell, J., Oehrn, C. R., Jensen, O., & van Gerven, M. A. J. (2016). 'Decoding of task-relevant and task-irrelevant intracranial EEG representations'. NeuroImage, 137, 132–139. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.05.008.
     
  22. Oehrn, C. R., Baumann, C., Fell, J., Lee, H., Kessler, H., Habel, U., Hanslmayr, S., & Axmacher, N. (2015). 'Human Hippocampal Dynamics during Response Conflict'. Current Biology: CB, 25(17), 2307–2313. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2015.07.032.
     
  23. Kremers, N. A. W., Deuker, L., Kranz, T. A., Oehrn, C. R., Fell, J., & Axmacher, N. (2014). 'Hippocampal control of repetition effects for associative stimuli'. Hippocampus, 24(7), 892–902. DOI: 10.1002/hipo.22278.
     
  24. Oehrn, C. R., Hanslmayr, S., Fell, J., Deuker, L., Kremers, N. A., Do Lam, A. T., Elger, C. E., & Axmacher, N. (2014). 'Neural communication patterns underlying conflict detection, resolution, and adaptation'. The Journal of Neuroscience, 34(31), 10438–10452. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3099-13.2014.
     
  25. Frasnelli, J., Oehrn, C., & Jones-Gotman, M. (2009). 'Effects of oral irritation on olfaction'. Food Chemistry, 113(4), 1003–1007. DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2008.08.052.
     
  26. Oehrn, C., Allbutt, H., & Henderson, J. (2007). 'Effect of ventrolateral thalamic nucleus lesions in the unilateral 6-hydroxydopamine rat model'. Behavioural Brain Research, 183(1), 67–77. DOI: 10.1016/j.bbr.2007.05.031.
Honors and Awards
  • Trainee Highlight Award, The BRAIN Initiative, USA
  • Best Doctoral Dissertation Award across faculties by the University of Bonn
  • Mentee, "ProProfessur" German mentorship program for women pursuing faculty positions
  • Travel Grant for the Movement Disorder Society Conference 2022
  • Travel Grant for the Movement Disorder Society Conference 2018
  • Poster Prize at the Psychology and the Brain Conference 2012
  • Scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation
Research Interests & Expertise
  • Closed-loop (adaptive) deep brain stimulation
  • Electrophysiology
  • Cognition
  • Parkinson's disease