Mladenka Tkalčić

Biopsychosocial aspects of functional bowel disorders

My research focuses on understanding the effects of different cognitive-affective and behavioural factors on health outcomes in patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), one of the most common functional bowel disorder. I use correlational, prospective, and experimental research designs to investigate the following questions: What is the intraindividual relationship between mood, stress and the severity of symptoms? What is the relationship betwen different aspects of anxiety (trait anxiety, anxiety sensitivity, anxious thoughts, and visceral anxiety) and mood (depression, negative and positive mood) and quality of life? What is the relationship between different aspects of anxiety and interoception, patterns of attention and performance on cognitive tasks? A final research question concerns testing the validity of the model of predictive coding by implementing the behavioural decision-making tasks with IBS patients and healthy participants.

Cognitive functioning in dementia

In this research area, I primarily focus on the comparison of cognitive and everyday functioning of dementia patients and healthy elderly people. Specific research questions concern i) a comparison of the cognitive status among patients with Alzheimer disease (AD), patients with vascular dementia (VaD), and healthy elderly persons, ii) testing the efficiency of olfactory and neuropsychological measures to classify patients, and iii) a comparison of everyday functioning with the cognitive status for each group, respectively.

Since 2010

Full Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Rijeka, Croatia

2005 – 2010

Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Rijeka, Croatia

2000 – 2005

Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Rijeka, Croatia

1999 – 2000

Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Psychology, University of Rijeka, Croatia

1998

PhD in Psychology, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Croatia

1990

MSc in Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

1986

Graduate Diploma in Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Rijeka, Croatia

I have supervised or co-supervised 3 PhD students (Dr. Goran Hauser, currently Dean of the Faculty of Medicine in Rijeka; Dr. Sanda Pletikosić Tončić, currently Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology in Rijeka and Dr. Delia Lupu, currently Assistant Professor at the Iuliu Haţieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Cluj, Romania). Currently I am supervising 2 PhD students (Helena Štrucelj currently working as an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Health Studies Rijeka and Ivana Nikolić Udovičić, currently working as a Clinical Psychologist at the University Clinical Hospital Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina). Furthermore, I have supervised more than 40 Masters students.

National projects

2018 - present 'Cognitive-affective and behavioural determinants of irritable bowel syndrome' (funded by the University of Rijeka; principal investigator)

2013 – 2018 'Biopsychosocial aspects of functional bowel disorders' (funded by the University of Rijeka, principal investigator)

2007 – 2013 'Psychosomatic aspects of chronic functional and inflammatory bowel diseases' (funded by the Croatian Ministry of Science, Education and Sports, principal investigator) International projects

2019 – 2023 'Computational psychosomatic medicine based on predictive coding: Basic study on irritable bowel syndrome” (funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science; collaborating researcher)

• 2021: The European Association of Psychosomatic Medicine’s (EAPM) Fellowship - recognition for outstanding contributions in the field of psychosomatic research, assessment and treatment

• 2019: Research Excellence Award, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Rijeka

• 2017: Teaching Excellence Reward, University of Rijeka, Croatia