About Lee:

I received a first Class Honours degree in Psychology from University College Dublin in 2014, and subsequently began work as a research assistant in Dr. Whelan’s lab. In 2014 I joined Dr. Whelan’s research group as a PhD student holding a Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship.

Current research:

My PhD research focuses on identifying cognitive, behavioural, personality, neural, and genetic correlates of nicotine addiction. A particular focus of this project is to identify traits and characteristics which are associated with high risk of developing nicotine dependence in early adolescence. To this end I am examining differences between biological sibling pairs discordant for cigarette smoking, and differences between adolescents who will go on to become smokers or remain non-smokers.

An area of especial interest here is impulsivity. I am examining behavioural and trait impulsivity through self-report questionnaires, inhibitory control tasks, and decision-making tasks. This includes the application of computational models of decision-making and task behaviour to behavioural data, and linking computational models to neuroimaging data.

Neuroimaging modalities used in this project are high-density EEG, functional MRI, and structural MRI. I have been invested in testing and creating analysis methods which allow us to more fully exploit high-dimensional neuroimaging data inputs while minimizing false positive findings, in order to produce truly reliable and replicable results. This has involved applying a variety of machine learning approaches to simulated data inputs to identify the optimal tradeoff between computational expense and model accuracy for differing data dimensionalities, and subsequently using these same approaches to analyse EEG and MRI data.

I take great care to create an environment that allows individuals from mariginalized populations, and from all economic, social, and cultural backgrounds, ability levels, and identities to participate in my research, and strive to incorporate a critical awareness of the social, political, and cultural context in which my work is situated into my research.

Publications:

Jollans, L., & Whelan, R. (2016). The Clinical Added Value of Imaging: A Perspective from Outcome Prediction. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging.

Jollans, L., Zhipeng, C., Icke, I., Greene, C., Kelly, C., Banaschewski, T., … & Conrod, P. J. (2016). Ventral Striatum Connectivity During Reward Anticipation in Adolescent Smokers. Developmental Neuropsychology, 1-16.

Briggs, Z., O’Connor, M., Jollans, E. K., O’Halloran, L., Dymond, S., & Whelan, R. (2015). Flexible emotion-based decision-making behavior varies in current and former smokers. Addictive behaviors, 45, 269-275.

Professional profiles: