About me
I am a postdoctoral researcher currently (2022-2024) pursuing a joint postdoc between the Biological Psychology Lab at Otto-von-Guericke-Universität-Magdeburg and the Cognition and Brain Plasticity Unit at Universitat de Barcelona, a position that is funded by the Spanish program Margarita Salas.
After I graduated in Psychology at my alma mater Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Tarragona, Spain) in 2014, I completed a MSc in Research in Behaviour and Cognition at Universitat de Barcelona, where I obtained my PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience in 2021 under the supervision of Dr. Antoni Rodríguez-Fornells and Dr. Joaquín Morís. During my PhD, I also did an internship at the Donders Institute for Brain, Behaviour & Cognition under the mentoring of Dr. Vitoria Piai.
​
My research focus is on brain mechanisms involved in language comprehension and language learning, both in cognitively healthy and in clinical populations. Specifically, I employ neuroimaging techniques (mainly EEG and fMRI) to study anticipatory processes that facilitate sentence comprehension and boost the acquisition of new words and new concepts.
​
In addition to this main line of research, I am also interested in: ​
-
translational research (in almost any cog neuro topic)
-
neurodegenerative diseases
-
mental health
-
individual differences in moral decision-making
​
I am passionate about teaching and communicating; transferring knowledge (and thinking of innovative ways to do so) is one of the most fulfilling activities that I know of. Also, whenever my academic schedule allows, I continue to train as a psychotherapist. My free time is filled with family, friends, music, and nature.
​
​
Publications
2022
León-Cabrera, P., Guillamon, A., Vega, D. C., & Rodriguez-Fornells, A. (2022). The beauty of language structure: a single-case fMRI study of palindrome creation. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 63, 101086. URL | Preprint
​
León-Cabrera, P., Piai, V., Morís, J., & Rodríguez-Fornells, A. (2022) Alpha power decreases associated with prediction in written and spoken sentence comprehension. Neuropsychologia. In press. Open Access
2021
León-Cabrera, P., Pagonabarraga, J., Morís, J., Martínez-Horta, S., Marín-Lahoz, J., Horta-Barba, A., Bejr-Kasem, H., Kulisevsky, J., & Rodríguez-Fornells, A. (2021). Neural signatures of predictive language processing in Parkinson’s disease with and without mild cognitive impairment. Cortex. 141, 112-127. Open Access
​
Rodriguez-Fornells, A., León-Cabrera, P., Gabarros, A., & Sierpowska, J. (2021). Inner Speech Brain Mapping. Is It Possible to Map What We Cannot Observe?. In Intraoperative Mapping of Cognitive Networks (pp. 381-409). Springer, Cham.
2020
Sierpowska, J., León-Cabrera, P., Camins, A., Juncadella, M., Gabarrós, A., & Rodríguez-Fornells, A. (2020). The black box of global aphasia: Neuroanatomical underpinnings of remission from acute global aphasia with preserved inner language function. Cortex, 130, 340-350. Open Access
2019
León-Cabrera, P., Flores, A., Rodríguez-Fornells, A., & Morís, J. (2019). Ahead of time: early sentence slow cortical modulations associated to semantic prediction. NeuroImage, 189, 192-201. URL
2018
Gurtubay-Antolin, A., León-Cabrera, P., & Rodríguez-Fornells, A. (2018). Neural Evidence of Hierarchical Cognitive Control during Haptic Processing: An fMRI Study. Eneuro, 5(6). Open Access.
2017
León-Cabrera, P., Rodríguez-Fornells, A., & Morís, J. (2017). Electrophysiological correlates of semantic anticipation during speech comprehension. Neuropsychologia, 99, 326-334. URL
Under review
Currently no papers under review
Contact me
Cognition and Brain Plasticity Unit
C/Feixa Llarga, S/N
08907 L'Hospitalet de Llobregat
Barcelona (Spain)