Maria graduated from the University of Granada with a BSc in Biology on 2014 and continued her studies with an MSc in Biomedicine at the University of Barcelona. Her Master’s project was carried out in the Institute of Neuropathology at the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) and was focused on the study of rapid degenerative dementias, including Alzheimer’s disease and Dementia with Lewy Bodies. After graduating she spent one year at the Laboratory of Neurobiology at the University of Malaga where research was focused on how memory and cognitive functions are processed, and how they can be restored in aging and Alzheimer’s disease rodent models.

Maria began her PhD in September 2016 at the University of Exeter as part of the Alzheimer’s Society Doctoral Training Centre at Exeter, under the supervision of Dr Jon Brown and Prof John Terry. Her PhD is focused on the study of the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) and how it is affected in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease using in vivo electrophysiology.