doc. MUDr. Alena Damborská, Ph.D.

Curriculum Vitae

Person Identification

• Alena Damborská, MD, Ph.D. ORCID iD 0000-0002-9714-7441
  https://www.linkedin.com/feed/
  https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=52hZ85QAAAAJ&hl=cs&oi=ao
  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=damborska+a
  https://loop.frontiersin.org/people/770061/overview
  https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alena_Damborska
  

Current Positions

• Associate Professor (since 11/2023)
  Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia
  
• Psychiatrist (since 09/2015)
  Department of Psychiatry, University Hospital Brno, Brno, Czechia
  

Previous Positions

• 05/2019 - 03/2025: Senior Staff Scientist, Multi-modal and Functional Neuroimaging Research Group, Brain and Mind Research Program, CEITEC, Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia
• 05/2017 – 04/2019: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Department of Basic Neurosciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Switzerland
• 05/2015 - 10/2023: Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia
• 06/2012 – 08/2015: Assistant Professor, Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia
• 01/2011 – 04/2019: Junior Staff Scientist, Multi-modal and Functional Neuroimaging Research Group, Brain and Mind Research Program, CEITEC, Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia
• 09/2007 – 05/2012: Assistant, Department of Physiology, Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia
• 03/2002 - 08/2007: Career break - maternity leave (two children)
• 03/1999 – 02/2002: Assistant, Department of Physiology, Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia
• 09/1997 - 02/1999: Pathologist, Department of Pathology, University Hospital Brno, Czechia

Education

• 2016 Functional specialization in electroencephalography – exam guaranteed by Czech Society for Clinical Neurophysiology
• 2012 Ph.D. in Physiology and Pathological Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University, Czechia
  Thesis: Event-related potentials registered intracerebrally during visual oddball task in human, supervisor: Prof. MUDr. Miloslav Kukleta, CSc.
• 2011 PREFECT course - Organization, Management and Project Management of Research and Development
• 1997 Master M.D., General Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University, Czechia

Teaching activities

• 2026 - Diploma thesis supervisor within the Master program in Neuroscience, Faculty of medicine, MU, Brno
• 2025 – Garant of the scientific part of the curriculum in the Master program in Neuroscience, Faculty of medicine, MU, Brno
• 2017 – Supervision of Master students of General Medicine within the Undergraduate Program for Motivated Students of Medicine with Extended Scientific Training (P-pool)
• 2016 – Lectures on Scientific and Educational Seminars guaranteed by the Czech Medical Chamber
• 2015 – Tutorials, clinical practicals, Team-based learning (TBL) lectures on Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia
• 2015 – Supervision of Master and Ph.D. students within conducted research projects
• 2013 – 2017 Supervision of Master students of General Medicine in their Individual Projects
• 1999 – 2015 Tutorials, practicals, and lectures on Physiology and Neuroscience, Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia

Research Focus

• Main fields of study: Cognitive neuroscience, Electrophysiology in affective disorders
  
• Cognitive functions. During the first 15 years of her scientific pursuits, Dr. Damborská worked with her colleagues on electrophysiological correlates of cognitive functions in human, e.g. stimulus evaluation, decision making, planning, problem solving, performance monitoring, error processing (Physiological research, 2012; Clinical Neurophysiology 2016a,b; Hippocampus, 2013; International Journal of Psychophysiology 2017) using the approach of intracranial electroencephalography during variety of cognitive tasks. Their findings provided knowledge that overcomes traditional one-to-one localization of functions in the brain supporting the idea to abandon concepts like vision, speech or hearing since one neural structure can fulfil multiple functions, depending on various functional network co-activations, e.g. motor cortex was suggested to be involved in non-motor cognitive functions, see https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26712539/.
  
• Affective disorders. In the last 10+ years, her work focuses on neuroscience in affective disorders. Using the electroencephalography (EEG) within the functional brain mapping approach, Dr. Damborská and her colleagues found conspicuous characteristics of the brain networks affected by depression. They showed that spatiotemporal characteristics of the resting-state brain activity, as captured with the analysis of the functional brain microstates (sub-second periods of stable EEG scalp topography), might be used for objective depression assessment, see https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/739939
  
• Functional brain connectivity. Dr. Damborská has also provided evidence for better understanding of subcortico-cortical interactions in human brain suggesting a hierarchical functional linkage between the subthalamic nucleus and cortex in the cross-frequency domain of the electrophysiological activity (Brain Topography, 2021). She also showed a higher-than-normal directed functional connectivity arising from the right amygdala in depressive patients supporting the view that the amygdala plays an important role in the neurobiology of depression (Scientific Reports, 2020).
  
• In her most recent work, Dr. Damborská extends her core expertise on electrophysiology in affective disorders to other approaches, such as hormonal and plasma protein abnormalities in depression (Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2022, 2024) and clinical effects of antidepressant drug intoxication (Frontiers in Pharmacology, 2024).
  Furthermore, her recent research interests extended to other psychiatric disorders, such as borderline personality disorder (Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation, 2023, 2024) and schizophrenia (Biological Psychiatry_Global Open Science, 2025)
  The work published by Dr. Damborská and her colleagues has been well received by peers, being cited in over 300 publications according to the Web of Science.
  

Research Projects

• 2020 - 2023 - Work package leader- Neural mechanisms of dialectical behavioral therapy in patinets with borderline personality disorder (NU20-04-00410)
  Sponsor: Ministry of Health of the CR / Ministry of Health Research Programme 2020 - 2026
  
• 2017 – 2019 - Principal Investigator - Deep brain targets for neurostimulation in affective disorders (739939) https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/739939
  Sponsor: European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action - Individual Fellowships (Call H2020/MSCA/IF/2016)
  
• 2016 – 2019: Work package leader- Modulation of functional connectivity of the large scale cortical networks by deep brain stimulation of subthalamic nucleus (16-33798A)
  Sponsor: Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic
  
• 2015 – 2018: Work package leader - Impulsivity phenotypes and their clinical impact in neuropsychiatric disorders (15-30062A)
  Sponsor: Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic
  
• 1999 – 2002: Member of the team - Plasticity of Regulatory Mechanisms of the Central Nervous Systems (MSM141100001)
  Sponsor: Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic

Internships

• 04/2019: Secondment during the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action at the Mood Disorder Unit, Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, Service of Psychiatric Specialties, Geneva University Hospital, Geneva, Switzerland; mentor: Prof. Alexandre Dayer
• 05/2017 – 04/2019: Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Department of Basic Neurosciences, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Switzerland; mentor: Prof. Christoph M. Michel
• 09/2014 - 11/2014: Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Functional Brain Mapping laboratory, Geneva University Hospital, Geneva, Switzerland; supervisor: Prof. Serge Vulliémoz
• 04/2001 - 06/2001: Doctoral Research Fellow, Serviço de Neurofisiologia, Hospital Santo António/Centro Hospitalar do Porto, Oporto, Portugal; supervisor: Prof. António Martins da Silva

Institutional Responsibilities

• 2015 – 2017: Constituent Member of the Steering Committee for Life Sciences Seminar Series that invites renowned speakers from abroad https://seminarseries.muni.cz/life-sciences/about-the-series/steering-committee
• 2012 – 2017 Organizer of the Internal Seminars on Individual projects of master students, Department of Physiology/Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University, Czechia

Communication to public

• since 09/2025 highlighting the conference potential of Brno as an Ambassador for the Brno Convention Bureau https://www.brnoconvention.com/ambassador-programe/
• 05/2023 "On Postdoctoral Fellowship Project with..." - a youtube video interview on the MSCA project https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jST_DvZwZ_A
• 06/2019 - "Zpráva z výzkumného pobytu ve Švýcarsku" - a report on the MSCA project http://www.cspsychiatr.cz/dwnld/CSP_2019_4_193_195.pdf
• 01/2019 Communication of research on depression to public audience at the Hands-on experiments stand within the REGIONTOUR (International Fair for Regional Tourism), Central European Exhibition Centre, Brno, Czech Republic
• 10/2018, "Analysis of brain microstates" - a presentation at the Hands-on experiments section within the Researchers´ Night, CEITEC, Brno, Czechia
• 7/2018 - "Deep brain stimulation" - a presentation at the Hands-on experiments section within the Researchers´ Night, Campus Biotech, Geneva, Switzerland
• 3/2018 - Discussions on depression at the Brain Awareness Week, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
• 11/2017 "Watch out, here they come!" - an interview for press on the MSCA project http://marieclaire.be/nl/wetenschappers-marie-curie/
• 9/2017 - “Breaking the Wall of Depression” - a presentation of the MSCA project to stakeholders at Falling Walls Lab Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions, House of European History, Brussels, Belgium
• 9/2017 - “Are you ready for deep brain stimulation?” - a presentation at the Hands-on experiments section within the European Researchers´ night, Brussels, Belgium
• since 2017 - "Microstate analysis of the brain activity in depression" - handouts in Layman’s terms about brain activity in depression, distributed to participants of the conducted studies

Reviewing Activities

• Reviewer for high impacted journals: Nat Commun, Neuroimage, Biol Psychol, Biol Psychiatry, Sci Rep, J Affect Disord, J Mol Med, Psychiatry Clin Neurosci, Transl Psychiatr, Brain Topogr, ect.
• Project Reviewer for Ministry of Health of the Slovak Republic, Czech Health Research Council, Charles University (Czechia), University of Geneva (Switzerland)
• Reviewer of PhD. and Bc. theses for Comenius University (Slovakia), Masaryk University (Czechia)
• Abstract evaluator at international events: World Congress of Psychiatry (2025); EEG Microstate conference (2024); Czech and Slovak Congress on Clinical Neurophysiology (2022); European Congress on Clinical Neurophysiology (2016); Interdisciplinary Conference on Experimental and Clinical Study of Higher Nervous Functions (2007); International C.I.A.N.S. Conference: Brain, Behavior, and Health (2007), ect.

Major Publications

• DAMBORSKÁ, Alena. Brain-Scale Electroencephalography Patterns of Sleep and Wake in Schizophrenia. BIOLOGICAL PSYCHIATRY: GLOBAL OPEN SCIENCE. AMSTERDAM: ELSEVIER, 2025, roč. 5, č. 1, s. 1-2. ISSN 2667-1743. Dostupné z: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsgos.2024.100428. URL info
• KOENIG, Thomas; Sarah DIEZIG; Sahana N KALBURGI; Elena ANTONOVA; Fiorenzo ARTONI; Lucie BRECHET; Juliane BRITZ; Pierpaolo CROCE; Anna CUSTO; Alena DAMBORSKÁ; Camila DEOLINDO; Markus HEINRICHS; Tobias KLEINERT; Zhen LIANG; Michael M MURPHY; Kyle NASH; Chystopher NEHANIV; Bastian SCHILLER; Una SMAILOVIC; Povilas TARAILIS; Miralena I TOMESCU; Eren TOPLUTAS; Federica VELLANTE; Anthony ZANESCO; Filippo ZAPPASODI; Qihong ZOU a Christoph M MICHEL. EEG-Meta-Microstates: Towards a more objective use of resting-state EEG microstate findings across studies. BRAIN TOPOGRAPHY. UNITED STATES: SPRINGER, 2024, roč. 37, č. 2, s. 218-231. ISSN 0896-0267. Dostupné z: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10548-023-00993-6. URL info
• CHIVU, Alina; Simona A PASCAL; Alena DAMBORSKÁ a Miralena I TOMESCU. EEG Microstates in Mood and Anxiety Disorders: A Meta-analysis. BRAIN TOPOGRAPHY. DORDRECHT: SPRINGER, 2024, roč. 37, č. 3, s. 357-368. ISSN 0896-0267. Dostupné z: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10548-023-00999-0. URL info
• RADIMECKÁ, Monika; Adéla LÁTALOVÁ; Martin LAMOŠ; Martin JÁNI; Patrik BARTYS; Alena DAMBORSKÁ; Pavel THEINER a Pavla LINHARTOVÁ. Facial emotion processing in patients with borderline personality disorder as compared with healthy controls: an fMRI and ECG study. BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER AND EMOTION DYSREGULATION. London: BMC, 2024, roč. 11, č. 1, s. 1-14. ISSN 2051-6673. Dostupné z: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40479-024-00245-4. URL info
• DAMBORSKÁ, Alena; Lenka HANAKOVA; Eva PINDUROVA a Kateřina HORSKÁ. Case report: Therapeutic drug monitoring and CYP2D6 phenoconversion in a protracted paroxetine intoxication. Frontiers in Pharmacology. Lausanne: Frontiers Media SA, 2024, roč. 15, September 2024, s. 1-7. ISSN 1663-9812. Dostupné z: https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2024.1444857. URL info
• KŘENEK, Pavel; Eliška BARTEČKOVÁ; Markéta MAKAROVÁ; Tomáš POMPA; Jana FIALOVÁ KUČEROVÁ; Jan KUČERA; Alena DAMBORSKÁ; Jana HOŘÍNKOVÁ a Julie DOBROVOLNÁ. Correlating plasma protein profiles with symptomatology and treatment response in acute phase and early remission of major depressive disorder. Frontiers in Psychiatry. Lausanne: Frontiers, 2024, roč. 15, September 2024, s. 1-17. ISSN 1664-0640. Dostupné z: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1425552. URL info
• TRENADO, Carlos; Ignacio MENDEZ-BALBUENA; Alena DAMBORSKÁ; Amir HUSSAIN; Mufti MAHMUD a Mohammad R DALIRI. Editorial: The new frontier in brain network physiology: from temporal dynamics to the principles of integration in physiological brain networks. In Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience. FRONTIERS MEDIA SAAVENUE DU TRIBUNAL FEDERAL 34, LAUSANNE CH-1015, SWITZERLAND, 2023, s. 1242834. ISSN 1662-5188. Dostupné z: https://doi.org/10.3389/fncom.2023.1242834. URL info
• LÁTALOVÁ, Adéla; Monika RADIMECKÁ; Martin LAMOŠ; Martin JÁNI; Alena DAMBORSKÁ; Pavel THEINER; Eliška BARTEČKOVÁ; Patrik BARTYS; Helena VLČKOVÁ; Katarína ŠKOLIAKOVÁ; Tomáš KAŠPÁREK a Pavla LINHARTOVÁ. Neural correlates of social exclusion and overinclusion in patients with borderline personality disorder: an fMRI study. BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER AND EMOTION DYSREGULATION. LONDON: BMC, 2023, roč. 10, č. 1, s. 1-14. ISSN 2051-6673. Dostupné z: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40479-023-00240-1. URL info
• BARTEČKŮ, Elis; Jana HOŘÍNKOVÁ; Pavel KŘENEK; Alena DAMBORSKÁ; Josef TOMANDL; Marie TOMANDLOVÁ; Jan KUČERA; Jana KUČEROVÁ a Julie DOBROVOLNÁ. Osteocalcin levels decrease during the treatment of an acute depressive episode. Frontiers in Psychiatry. LAUSANNE: FRONTIERS MEDIA SA, 2022, roč. 13, August 2022, s. 1-8. ISSN 1664-0640. Dostupné z: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.893012. URL info
• DAMBORSKÁ, Alena; Martin LAMOŠ; D. BRUNET; S. VULLIEMOZ; Martina BOČKOVÁ; Barbora DEUTSCHOVÁ; Marek BALÁŽ a Ivan REKTOR. Resting-State Phase-Amplitude Coupling Between the Human Subthalamic Nucleus and Cortical Activity: A Simultaneous Intracranial and Scalp EEG Study. BRAIN TOPOGRAPHY. DORDRECHT: SPRINGER, 2021, roč. 34, č. 3, s. 272-282. ISSN 0896-0267. Dostupné z: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10548-021-00822-8. URL info
• DAMBORSKÁ, Alena; Eliška HONZÍRKOVÁ; Elis BARTEČKŮ; Jana HOŘÍNKOVÁ; Sylvie FEDOROVÁ; Šimon ONDRUŠ; Christoph M. MICHEL a Maria RUBEGA. Altered directed functional connectivity of the right amygdala in depression: high-density EEG study. Scientific Reports. London: Nature Publishing Group, 2020, roč. 10, č. 1, s. 1-14. ISSN 2045-2322. Dostupné z: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-61264-z. URL info
• DROBISZ, Dominik a Alena DAMBORSKÁ. Deep brain stimulation targets for treating depression. BEHAVIOURAL BRAIN RESEARCH. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, 2019, roč. 359, Feb 2019, s. 266-273. ISSN 0166-4328. Dostupné z: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2018.11.004. URL info
• DAMBORSKÁ, Alena; Miralena, I. TOMESCU; Eliška HONZÍRKOVÁ; Elis BARTEČKŮ; Jana HOŘÍNKOVÁ; Sylvie FEDOROVÁ; Šimon ONDRUŠ a Christoph M. MICHEL. EEG Resting-State Large-Scale Brain Network Dynamics Are Related to Depressive Symptoms. Frontiers in Psychiatry. Lausanne: Frontiers, 2019, roč. 10, č. 548, s. 1-10. ISSN 1664-0640. Dostupné z: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00548. URL info
• DAMBORSKÁ, Alena; Camille PIGUET; Jean-Michel AUBRY; Alexandre G. DAYER; Christoph M. MICHEL a Cristina BERCHIO. Altered Electroencephalographic Resting-State Large-Scale Brain Network Dynamics in Euthymic Bipolar Disorder Patients. Frontiers in Psychiatry. Lausanne: Frontiers, 2019, roč. 10, NOV 15 2019, s. 1-10. ISSN 1664-0640. Dostupné z: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00826. URL info
• KUKLETA, Miloslav; Alena DAMBORSKÁ; Baris TURAK a Jacques LOUVEL. Evoked potentials in final epoch of self-initiated hand movement: A study in patients with depth electrodes. International Journal of Psychophysiology. AMSTERDAM: Elsevier Science, 2017, roč. 117, July, s. 119-125. ISSN 0167-8760. Dostupné z: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2017.05.004. info
• DAMBORSKÁ, Alena; Robert ROMAN; Milan BRÁZDIL; Ivan REKTOR a Miloslav KUKLETA. Post-movement processing in visual oddball task - Evidence from intracerebral recording. Clinical Neurophysiology. Clare: Elsevier Ireland, 2016, roč. 127, č. 2, s. 1297-1306. ISSN 1388-2457. Dostupné z: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinph.2015.08.014. URL info
• KUKLETA, Miloslav; Alena DAMBORSKÁ; Robert ROMAN; Ivan REKTOR a Milan BRÁZDIL. The primary motor cortex is involved in the control of a non-motor cognitive action. Clinical Neurophysiology. Clare: Elsevier Ireland, 2016, roč. 127, č. 2, s. 1547-1550. ISSN 1388-2457. Dostupné z: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinph.2015.11.049. URL info
• ROMAN, Robert; Milan BRÁZDIL; Jan CHLÁDEK; Ivan REKTOR; Pavel JURÁK; Miroslav SVĚTLÁK; Alena DAMBORSKÁ; Daniel Joel SHAW a Miloslav KUKLETA. Hippocampal negative event-related potential recorded in humans during a simple sensorimotor task occurs independently of motor execution. Hippocampus. Hoboken, USA: WILEY-BLACKWELL, 2013, roč. 23, č. 12, s. 1337-1344. ISSN 1050-9631. Dostupné z: https://doi.org/10.1002/hipo.22173. URL info
• SVĚTLÁK, Miroslav; Petr BOB; Robert ROMAN; Stanislav JEŽEK; Alena DAMBORSKÁ; Jan CHLÁDEK; Daniel Joel SHAW a Miloslav KUKLETA. Stress-Induced Alterations of Left-Right Electrodermal Activity Coupling Indexed by Pointwise Transinformation. Physiological Research. Prague: Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Institute of Physiology, 2013, roč. 62, č. 6, s. 711-719. ISSN 0862-8408. URL info
• DAMBORSKÁ, Alena; Milan BRÁZDIL; Ivan REKTOR; Eva JANOUŠOVÁ; Jan CHLÁDEK a Miloslav KUKLETA. Late divergence of target and nontarget ERPs in a visual oddball task. Physiological Research. Praha: Akademie věd ČR, 2012, roč. 61, č. 3, s. 307-318. ISSN 0862-8408. info

2026/02/26