Sofia Rita Cardoso Fernandes
Room in IBEB
1.09
Contacts
E-mail: srcfernandes[at]fc.ul.pt
Professional networks
Curriculum
Research topics
- Neural Stimulation
- Realistic computer Modelling
- Finite Element Analysis
- tDCS
- tsDCS
- Brain Connectivity
- Electroencephalography
- Spinal Cord
- Electromiography
- Motor Control
- Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
- Tissue Engineering
Biography
Sofia Rita Cardoso Fernandes was born in Lisbon on the 19th July 1976. After finishing high school, she completed a Bsc. degree in Physics (2001), in the Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa (FCUL). Soon after, she completed a MSc. in Astronomy and Astrophysics of the same college (2003), under a scholarship from a project PESO/P/PRO/40154/2000 “The Nearest Planet Nurseries”, funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT).
With a growing interest in health sciences, especially regarding to the study of neuromotor dysfunctions, she completed a BSc. in Physiotherapy in 2009 in the Escola Superior de Tecnologia da Saúde de Lisboa (ESTeSL). During her working experience as a physiotherapist, she found frequently cases of neurodegenerative dysfunctions and diseases, which contributed to a growing need to understand more how to act to prevent or delay the onset of symptoms related with these diseases. This motivation led her to enroll in the Doctoral Program in Neurosciences of the Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de Lisboa (FMUL) in 2013. Her training in Physics and Physiotherapy was the main motivation for her PhD research project: the study of non-invasive application of direct currents (DC) for neuromodulation of neural networks of the spinal cord. In 2015, she got a FCT scholarship for her PhD project, developed at the Institute of Biophysics and Biomedical Engineering (IBEB), in collaboration with the Institute of Molecular Medicine (IMM). She finished her PhD in 2019, with thesis entitled “Transcutaneous Spinal Direct Current Stimulation: Modelling the spinal electric field distribution and clinical relevance” (Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de Lisboa, FMUL). During her PhD, Sofia performed MRI segmentation and surface meshing operations to produce the first tetrahedral mesh computational model of a realistic human spinal cord and surrounding tissues. She simulated several protocols with this model, for transcutaneous spinal direct current stimulation (tsDCS), under the supervision of Professor Pedro Cavaleiro Miranda, one of the main precursors of realistic computational models of brain stimulation. These simulations were applied to optimize tsDCS protocols and unravel its therapeutic potential, under the supervision of Professor Mamede de Carvalho (FMUL, Instituto de Medicina Molecular João Lobo Antunes – iMM). Four papers were published in Q1 and Q2 international peer-reviewed journals (since 2018), as well as several international conference proceedings (since 2016). She currently co-supervise a PhD student at FMUL on tsDCS application in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a field where Professor Mamede has large international impact. With this collaboration, she also developed skills on statistical analyses of electromyography (EMG) and ALS-related measures.
Sofia currently leads the non-invasive brain and spinal cord stimulation (NIBSS) modelling team at IBEB (since September 2022) and coordinates the strategic project, combining brain connectivity, neuromodulation and computational modelling research lines, including supervision of several MSc theses and internships (national and international). Research is mainly focused in analysis of EEG data and how this changes with transcranial current stimulation (tCS), using a modelling-experimental approach.
Sofia also worked as a doctorate researcher at Centro para o Desenvolvimento Rápido do Produto (CDRSP, 2020), on the development of digital twins of stimulation of in vitro cultures in tissue engineering, and still collaborates through the supervision of a PhD student. She also lectures Bioelectricity and Electrophysiology and Human Movement and Motor Control in Master programmes in Biomedical Engineering and Physiotherapy. Her multidisciplinary research also triggered international collaborations, specifically: Portuguese representative at the international consortium on tsDCS in motorneuron diseases (EU JPND call 2022); tsDCS research with Professor Yasin Dhaher, UT Southwestern; research in high-definition tDCS with Doctor Amparo Callejon, University of Seville, including co-supervision of a PhD internship at the end of 2023; organization of international symposiums and member of the organizing committee of the annual Brain and Human Body Modelling Conference since 2022 (Martinos Center, Harvard Medical School).
https://www.webofscience.com/wos/author/record/JHU-1228-2023
Publications
Journal publications
(2023) Effect of tDCS montages in EEG-based functional connectivity of the sensorimotor network, Brain Stimulation 16(1), p. 372, Elsevier, doi:10.1016/j.brs.2023.01.732
() Circumstellar Disk Frequency in Young Clusters
(2023) Model-guided transcutaneous direct current stimulation of the brain and spinal cord to repair ALS-induced motor dysfunctions, Brain Stimulation 16(1), p. 187-188, Elsevier, doi:10.1016/j.brs.2023.01.218
(2022) TH-183. Relevance of realistic human models to guide non-invasive spinal stimulation: A review of current findings, Clinical Neurophysiology 141, p. S139, Elsevier, doi:10.1016/j.clinph.2022.07.363
(2022) Lumbar trans-spinal direct current stimulation: A modeling-experimental approach to dorsal root ganglia stimulation, Frontiers in Neuroscience 16, p. 1041932, Frontiers, doi:10.3389/fnins.2022.1041932
(2022) Respiratory function tests in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: The role of maximal voluntary ventilation, Journal of the Neurological Sciences 434, p. 120143, Elsevier, doi:10.1016/j.jns.2022.120143
(2022) Author Correction: How to correctly estimate the electric field in capacitively coupled systems for tissue engineering: a comparative study (Scientific Reports, (2022), 12, 1, (11049), 10.1038/s41598-022-14834-2), Scientific Reports 12(1), p. 11049, Nature Publishing Group UK London, doi:10.1038/s41598-022-16724-z
(2021) Neuromodulation of lower limb motor pathways with trans-spinal direct current stimulation: an overview of current findings, Annals of Medicine 53(sup1), p. S32-S32, Taylor & Francis, doi:10.1080/07853890.2021.1896902
(2020) Modelling Studies of Non-invasive Electric and Magnetic Stimulation of the Spinal Cord, Brain and Human Body Modeling 2020: Computational Human Models Presented at EMBC 2019 and the BRAIN Initiative, p. 139-165, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-45623-8_8
(2020) A multimodal stimulation cell culture bioreactor for tissue engineering: A numerical modelling approach, Polymers 12(4), p. 940, Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, doi:10.3390/POLYM12040940
(2019) Cervical trans-spinal direct current stimulation: A modelling-experimental approach, Journal of Neuroengineering and Rehabilitation 16(1), p. 1-14, BioMed Central
(2019) Transcutaneous Spinal Direct Current Stimulation : Modelling the spinal electric field distribution and clinical relevance .
(2018) Transcutaneous spinal direct current stimulation of the lumbar and sacral spinal cord: A modelling study, Journal of Neural Engineering 15(3), p. 36008, IOP Publishing, doi:10.1088/1741-2552/aaac38
(2018) Neuromodulation of lower limb motor responses with transcutaneous lumbar spinal cord direct current stimulation, Clinical Neurophysiology 129(9), p. 1999-2009, Elsevier, doi:10.1016/j.clinph.2018.07.002
(2018) Neuromodulation of lower limb motor responses with transcutaneous lumbar spinal cord direct current stimulation, Clinical Neurophysiology 129(9), p. 1999-2009, Elsevier, doi:10.1016/j.clinph.2018.07.002
(2017) P084 Electric field distribution in the lumbar spinal cord during trans-spinal magnetic stimulation, Clinical Neurophysiology 128(3), p. e48-e50, Elsevier, doi:10.1016/j.clinph.2016.10.209
(2017) Influence of electrode configuration in neuromodulation of cervical spinal cord during non-invasive direct current stimulation, Brain Stimulation 10(2), p. 458, Elsevier, doi:10.1016/j.brs.2017.01.345
(2017) Effects of tissue conductivities in tCS of the motor cortex with different electrode configurations, Brain Stimulation 10(2), p. 438, Elsevier, doi:10.1016/j.brs.2017.01.306
(2017) Optimizing Electric-Field Delivery for tDCS: Virtual Humans Help to Design Efficient, Noninvasive Brain and Spinal Cord Electrical Stimulation, IEEE Pulse 8(4), p. 42-45, IEEE, doi:10.1109/MPUL.2017.2701259
(2004) Near infrared imaging of NGC 2316, Astronomy and Astrophysics 413(1), p. L1--L4, EDP Sciences, doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20034621
Conference publications
(2023) Interplay Between Electrical Conductivity of Tissues and Position of Electrodes in Transcutaneous Spinal Direct Current Stimulation (tsDCS), Brain and Human Body Modelling 2021, p. 101-122, doi:10.1007/978-3-031-15451-5_7
(2022) How the Number and Distance of Electrodes Change the Induced Electric Field in the Cortex during Multichannel tDCS, Proceedings of the Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBS 2022-July, p. 2357-2360, doi:10.1109/EMBC48229.2022.9871114
(2022) Numerical Modelling of a Bioreator Design Targeting Optimal Conditions for Cell Culture, AIP Conference Proceedings 2425(1), doi:10.1063/5.0081336
(2022) Comparison of Electromagnetic Stimulation Fields Generated by Different Experimental Setups: a Biophysical Analysis, AIP Conference Proceedings 2425(1), doi:10.1063/5.0081338
(2021) Effects of Scaffold Electrical Properties on Electric Field Delivery in Bioreactors, Proceedings of the Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBS, p. 4147-4151, doi:10.1109/EMBC46164.2021.9630711
(2020) Non-invasive Spinal Cord Stimulation: Relevance of Modelling Studies in Clinical Protocol Design, IFMBE Proceedings 76, p. 1767-1773, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-31635-8_214
(2019) Electric Field Distribution during Non-Invasive Electric and Magnetic Stimulation of the Cervical Spinal Cord∗, Proceedings of the Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBS, p. 5898-5901, doi:10.1109/EMBC.2019.8857129
(2016) Evaluation of the electric field in the brain during transcranial direct current stimulation: A sensitivity analysis, Proceedings of the Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBS 2016-Octob, p. 1778-1781, doi:10.1109/EMBC.2016.7591062
(2016) Computational models of non-invasive brain and spinal cord stimulation, Proceedings of the Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBS 2016-Octob, p. 6457-6460, doi:10.1109/EMBC.2016.7592207
(2016) Influence of electrode configuration on the electric field distribution during transcutaneous spinal direct current stimulation of the cervical spine, Proceedings of the Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBS 2016-Octob, p. 3121-3124, doi:10.1109/EMBC.2016.7591390
(2015) Transcutaneous Spinal Cord Stimulation: Modeling the Electric Field Distribution using the Finite Element Method, EMBC'15 - 37th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineeting in Medicine and Biology Society, Milan. Italy, 2015., p. b, url
(2015) Transcutaneous Spinal Direct Current Stimulation : Modelling the Electric Field Distribution in the Cervical Spinal Cord, 3rd International Congress on Neurotechnology Electronics and Informatics – Neurotechnix 2015, Lisboa, Portugal, 2015., p. a
(2004) Timescale for Disk Dissipation in Young Clusters, Extrasolar Planets: Today and Tomorrow 321, p. 337
(2004) What Can We Learn from Protoplanetary Disk Frequency in Young Clusters ?, IAU Symposium 321, p. 237-243
(2004) What Can We Learn from Protoplanetary Disk Frequency in Young Clusters ?, Extrasolar Planets: Today and Tomorrow 321, p. 237-243
(2003) Protoplanetary Disk Fraction in Young Clusters and the Timescale for Planet Formation, Galactic Star Formation Across the Stellar Mass Spectrum 287, p. 325-329