Sahba Besharati

Sahba Besharati is a Senior Lecturer in Cognitive Neuroscience and a neuropsychologist at the Department of Psychology, University of the Witwatersrand. She holds a collaborative PhD in Neuropsychology from King's College London and the University of Cape Town. Her research focuses on human social-affective neuroscience, integrating neuroimaging, neuropsychological, and experimental methods to study self-consciousness and social cognition, particularly in conditions like anosognosia for hemiplegia and stroke recovery. As co-founder of Wits NeuRL, she advances neuroscience research in the South African context.

• Education: PhD (Neuropsychology) from King's College London and University of Cape Town; training in clinical neuropsychology at UCT.
• Research Themes: Self-ownership, affective touch, cultural influences on cognition, and neural mechanisms of social inferences in neurological disorders.

Her publications span 2014-2025, covering topics such as anosognosia, body ownership, pandemic psychology, and African neuroscience equity. Key collaborations include institutions like the University of London, University of Cape Town, and CIFAR. She actively contributes to peer review for journals including Communications biology and Cortex.