Profile

Biography

Catherine completed a BSc in Psychology with Neuroscience at the University of Leicester  in 2004 and then a Ph.D in Psychology at the University of Nottingham in 2008. After her Ph.D, Catherine stayed as a postdoc at the University of Nottingham until 2010 when she took a position as temporary lecturer at Nottingham Trent University. In 2011 Catherine then moved to the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm where she won two fellowships, the Wenner Gren foreign researcher fellowship and Marie Curie Intra European Fellowship before starting her lectureship at the University of York in 2015.

Career

• Lecturer, Department of Psychology, University of York, UK (2015 - present)
• Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden (2011 - 2015)
• Temporary Lecturer, Division of Psychology, Nottingham Trent University, UK (2010 - 2011)
• Postdoctoral Research Associate, School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, UK (2008 - 2010)
• Ph.D Psychology, School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, UK (2004 - 2008)
• BSc Psychology with Neuroscience, School of Psychology, University of Leicester, UK (2001 - 2004)

Research

Projects

My research interests are centred around self awareness and body perception particularly in relation to clinical disorders and underlying neural mechanisms. Currently I am using multisensory body illusions and functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine behavioural and neural links between body perception and emotion in disordered eating. I am also interested in how body perception can effect the experience of pain, as well as action awareness following stroke.

Grants

Catherine’s research has received funding from the Dunhill Medical Trust, Wenner Gren Foundations, Marie Curie Actions, and Hjärnfonden. 

Catherine was a member of the team that won first prize in the 2012 Neural Correlate  Society’s Illusion of The Year contest, with the disappearing hand trick.

Publications

Selected publications

Preston, C., & Ehrsson, H. H. (2014). Illusory changes in body size modulate body satisfaction in a way that is related to non-clinical eating disorder psychopathology. PloS one, 9(1). 

Preston, C. (2013). The role of distance from the body and distance from the real hand in ownership and disownership during the rubber hand illusion. Acta psychologica, 142(2), 177-183. 

Preston, C., & Newport, R. (2011). Analgesic effects of multisensory illusions in osteoarthritis. Rheumatology, ker104. 

Preston, C., Jenkinson, P. M., & Newport, R. (2010). Anosognosia for hemiplegia as a global deficit in motor awareness: Evidence from the non-paralysed limb. Neuropsychologia, 48(12), 3443-3450.

External activities

Memberships

• British Neuropsychological Society