Dr. Christa Müller-Axt

I studied Psychology (B.Sc.) and Cognitive Neuroscience (M.Sc.) at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. During my master's studies, I worked on several research projects investigating the role of subcortical brain structures in human perceptual decision-making. Furthermore, I was involved in creating probabilistic atlases of small subcortical brain nuclei based on various high-resolution 7T MRI contrasts of in- and ex-vivo human brain specimens. In early 2015, I started my PhD under the supervision of Prof. Katharina von Kriegstein at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany. In my doctoral dissertation, I investigated the role of the visual sensory thalamus (i.e., lateral geniculate nucleus) in developmental dyslexia using multi-modal neuroimaging techniques including high-resolution 7T structural and functional MRI and 3T diffusion-weighted MRI. In 2019, I joined the Chair of Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience at the TU Dresden under Prof. von Kriegstein, where I completed my PhD in 2023. As a postdoctoral fellow at the chair, I continue to investigate the role of subcortical sensory brain structures in neurodevelopmental disorders with a focus on high-resolution quantitative and diffusion-weighted MR imaging.

• High-resolution 7T functional MRI (fMRI) and structural MRI (sMRI)
• High-resolution diffusion-weighted imaging (dMRI)
• In-vivo mapping of subcortical brain structures by means of fMRI & sMRI at high field
• Inferring brain tissue microstructure from quantitative sMRI
• Assessing cortico-thalamic connectivity and its role in human cognition
• Exploring the role of subcortical sensory brain structures in human communication

Muller-Axt, C., Kauffmann, L., Eichner, C., & von Kriegstein, K. (2024). Dysfunction of the magnocellular subdivision of the visual thalamus in developmental dyslexia. Brain. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awae235

Eichner, C., Paquette, M., Müller-Axt, C., et al. (2024). Detailed mapping of the complex fiber structure and white matter pathways of the chimpanzee brain. Nature Methods, 21, 1122-1130. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-024-02270-1

Hüser, L., von Kriegstein, K. & Müller-Axt., C. (2023) Pragmatic competence in native German adults with and without Developmental Dyslexia. International Review of Pragmatics 15 (2023) 32–62. https://doi.org/doi:10.1163/18773109-01501002

Müller-Axt, C., Eichner, C., Rusch, H., Kauffmann, L., Bazin, P. L., Anwander, A., Morawski, M., & von Kriegstein, K. (2021). Mapping the human lateral geniculate nucleus and its cytoarchitectonic subdivisions using quantitative MRI. NeuroImage, 244, 118559.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118559

Müller-Axt, C., Anwander, A., & von Kriegstein, K. (2017). Altered structural connectivity of the left visual thalamus in developmental dyslexia. Current Biology, 27(23), 3692-3698. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.10.034

Weiss, M., Alkemade, A., Keuken, M. C., Müller-Axt, C., Geyer, S., Turner, R., & Forstmann, B. U. (2015). Spatial normalization of ultrahigh resolution 7 T magnetic resonance imaging data of the postmortem human subthalamic nucleus: a multistage approach. Brain Structure and Function, 220(3), 1695-1703. https://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2Fs00429-014-0754-4

Keuken, M.C., Bazin, P.-L., Crown, L., Hootsmans, J., Laufer, A., Müller-Axt, C., Sier, R., van der Putten, E.J., Schäfer, A., Turner, R., & Forstmann, B.U. (2014). Quantifying inter-individual anatomical variability in the subcortex using 7T structural MRI. NeuroImage, 94, 40-46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.03.032

Keuken, M. C., Müller-Axt, C., Langner, R., Eickhoff, S. B., Forstmann, B. U., & Neumann, J. (2014). Brain networks of perceptual decision-making: an fMRI ALE meta-analysis. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 1-14. https://dx.doi.org/10.3389%2Ffnhum.2014.00445