Kata Popovic

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About

Kata Popovic is a pioneering researcher in preclinical neuroimaging, specializing in the development of noninvasive techniques to study brain function in awake, freely moving animals. Her major contributions center on markerless motion tracking for positron emission tomography (PET), a breakthrough that eliminates the need for anesthetics during functional imaging. This innovation allows researchers to simultaneously capture behavioral responses to stimuli or drugs alongside radiotracer-based brain activity, opening new frontiers in behavioral neuroscience and pharmacology. Her most-cited work, "Markerless Motion Tracking of Awake Animals in Positron Emission Tomography" (2014, 49 citations), established the feasibility of motion-compensated PET imaging in unrestrained small animals. Building on this, her 2018 study "Open-field PET" (33 citations) demonstrated concurrent brain imaging and behavioral measurement in freely moving rodents, a significant methodological advance. Popovic's work has been instrumental in bridging the gap between neuroimaging and ethologically relevant behavior, offering a more naturalistic window into brain function. Her achievements underscore a commitment to refining preclinical tools, with direct implications for translational studies in neurology and psychiatry.