Pooresmaeili, Arezoo, MD, PhD

Group Leader

• 1994-2001: Tehran University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, obtained degree: MD
• 2003-2009: PhD projects exploring mechanisms of visual attention in the primary visual cortex and Frontal Eye Fields (under supervision of Dr. Pieter Roelfsema)
• 2009-2011: Postdoctoral fellow, Pisa Vision Lab, with Dr. Concetta Morrone and Dr. David Burr
• 2011-2014: Postdoctoral fellow, Berlin School of Mind and Brain, with Dr. Ray Dolan (Einstein Visiting Fellow)
• 2015-2023: Group Leader, Perception and Cognition Group, European Neuroscience Institute, Göttingen, Germany
• Since 2023: Associate Professor, University of Southampton, School of Psychology, United Kingdom

Major Research Interests

• Systems Neuroscience


• Cognitive Neuroscience


• Behavioral, Neuroimaging, Electrophysiology and Brain Stimulation Studies in humans


• Sensory Perception


• Attention


• Reward Processing


• Decision Making


• Social Cognition

• Arezoo Pooresmaeili, Aurel Wannig, Raymond J. Dolan: Receipt of reward leads to altered estimation of effort. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2015 Oct 27;112(43):13407-10. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1507527112. Epub 2015 Oct 12.
• Arezoo Pooresmaeili,Thomas H.B. FitzGerald, Dominik R. Bach, Ulf Toelch, Florian Ostendorf, Raymond J. Dolan: Crossmodal effects of value on perceptual acuity and stimulus encoding. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). 2014 Oct 21;111(42):15244-9. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1408873111
• Arezoo Pooresmaeili and Pieter Roelfsema: A growth-cone model for the spread of object-based attention. Current Biology, 2014 Dec 15;24(24):2869-77. doi: 10.1016/j.
• Arezoo Pooresmaeili, Jasper Poort, Pieter R Roelfsema: Simultaneous selection by object-based attention in visual and frontal cortex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 2014 Apr 29;111(17):6467-72. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1316181111;
• Arezoo Pooresmaeili, Roberto Arrighi, Laura Biagi, Maria Concetta Morrone: Blood Oxygen Level-Dependent Activation of the Primary Visual Cortex Predicts Size Adaptation Illusion. Journal of Neuroscience 10/2013; 33(40):15999-16008.
• Arezoo Pooresmaeili, Jasper Poort, Alexander Thiele, Pieter R Roelfsema: Separable codes for attention and luminance contrast in the primary visual cortex. Journal of Neuroscience 09/2010; 30(38):12701-11.