Ana Carolina Castro is a PhD student in Biomedicine at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto (FMUP). She holds a MSc in Health Sciences and a BSc in Biochemistry (both from University of Minho). While completing her MSc dissertation, she published an article in Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience as first author entitled "Auditory Dysfunction in Animal Models of Autism Spectrum Disorder" (2022) and co-authored another publication showing that chronic stress leads to dishinibition of striatum circuits (Nature Communications, 2022). She organized and participated in several science events: presented scientific posters both at national and european conferences in the field of neurosciences (e.g., Federation of European Neurosciences Societies Metting 2022) and participated in science communication events such as the Pint Of Science Festival in 2024. She received an excellence scholarship by University of Minho for best application grade to the Biochemistry Bachelor and was a student representative during her second year of the MSc. She is interested in studying auditory hypersensitivity in a mouse model of autism spectrum disorder using behavioral, electrophysiological and molecular biology approaches.