What is the neural basis of social decision-making across childhood, adolescence and adulthood and what are the developmental patterns in terms of behavior and brain activation?

A neurobiological perspective on individual differences in social competence

Exclusion elicits the same response in children as in adolescents and adults. That is what psychologist Mara van der Meulen found when she studied brain activity in primary schoolchildren. ‘What is new for us is that it is the same in childhood as later in life.’ Doctoral defence on 10 December.

Nowadays children grow up with social media. This may influence the development of brain regions involved in social interaction. In their review article in Nature Communications, Crone and Konijn illustrate how neuroscience can contribute to a better understanding of how media and peers influence adolescents'…

What is the relation between brain development and social and cognitive development across childhood, adolescence and adulthood?

The work presented in this thesis addresses the role of the locus coeruleus (LC) - norepinephrine (NE) system in various aspects of human cognition, and the modulation of brain state.

How is structural and functional brain development related to behavioral change in cognitive-control, impulse regulation, and socio-emotional functioning?

An Integrative Approach to the Hominin Record

Neuroimaging research has greatly advanced our insights on how the brain is organized. Now is the time for the next step: Imagine what would be possible when we cannot only map brain-functioning, but use neuroimaging to voluntarily regulate brain-activity!

The more opportunities a child has to learn and develop, the stronger his or her future position in society. Leiden University investigates how the brain picks up information, and how learning processes can be influenced positively.

Researchers have been working for centuries in mapping the human brain. But in the year 2017 some brain structures remain still not well mapped, especially those located at the brainstem. In this paper, we quantified the test–retest reliability of imaging the brainstem nucleus locus coeruleus in vivo…

Fundamental insights into the working of the adolescent brain help lecturers and parents to teach adolescents to function better. Professor Eveline Crone studies executive functions – such as planning and behaviour – in the adolescent brain.

Your brain responds in a predictable way when it encounters new or difficult tasks. This unique book teaches you concrete techniques rooted in cognitive science that will improve the way you learn and think about code.

This interdisciplinary minor emphasizes the diversity and complementarity of various cognitive neuroscience approaches to understanding the human brain.

This minor focuses on the cognitive processes that influence the interaction between the brain and the mind.

The Brain and Education lab is a research group in the Institute of Education and Child Studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands. We use a Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience approach to study the development of complex cognitive processes involved in learning and academic skills such as reading…

In a recent mega-analysis, researchers from Leiden University aimed to clarify the contradictory findings of research into social anxiety disorder. They found that to obtain reliable research results having the largest possible sample size is important. Publication in NeuroImage:Clinical.

Dementia is a progressive disease, diagnosed at a relatively late stage when intervention may not be effective. Aim of the research is to study scans of brain networks to help discover the early network changes related to dementia. Early diagnosis may benefit effectiveness of future treatment.

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The factors that dynamically sculpt the inter-regional correlation of brain patterns are poorly understood. Here, we test the hypothesis that they are shaped by the catecholaminergic neuromodulators norepinephrine and dopamine.

This study is the first to directly relate brain development to sex differences and school performance. The results debunk the myth that brain development is slower in boys.

Promotor: Prof.dr. M. Danhof, Co-promotor: E.C.M. de Lange

Smartphone behaviors are so common but how does the brain generate this behavior? The Cognition in the digital environment laboratory (CODELAB) investigated the brain activity surrounding smartphone interactions with the help of Artificial Intelligence. According to their research, the brain fluidly…

This project looks at how the native language influences processing mechanisms of non-native language(s) as well has how it influences brain structure and functional connectivity.

It was already known that social anxiety disorder often affects more than one person in the same family. But research by PhD student Janna Marie Bas-Hoogendam has now shown that there are genetic brain characteristics that are associated with social anxiety. The PhD ceremony will take place on 14 Ja…

Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease are the most common neurodegenerative disorders. Unfortunately, no effective treatments are currently available to halt the progression of these neuroinflammatory diseases [1].

What role do parent-child interactions play in the development, maintenance and treatment of depression in young people?

The Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition (LIBC) is a network that stimulates interdisciplinary exchange of knowledge and expertise on topics related to brain and cognition and focuses on science valorisation and outreach.

Can playing certain games decrease cognitive decline or even enhance cognitive performance in the aging population?

Using brain imaging to discover the area in the brain that recognizes emotion.

A novel mathematical model describes spatial-temporal drug distribution within one or more brain units, which are cubic representations of a piece of brain tissue with brain capillaries at the edges.

PhD defence

This project investigates properties of quantity expressions across languages from the perspective of how quantity is represented in the human brain.

A P300-based Brain Computer Interface character speller, also known as P300 speller, has been an important communication pathway, under extensive research, for people who lose motor ability, such as patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or spinal-cord injury because a P300 speller allows human-beings…

Which adolescents are more at risk of developing social anxiety disorder later in life?

Nature, nurture and neural mechanisms of social emotion regulation in childhood

Brain researcher Elseline Hoekzema has discovered that the structure of the brain changes during pregnancy, particularly those areas related to social functions. These changes persist for at least two years after the mother gives birth. Publication in Nature Neuroscience on 19 December.

A neuro-ecological perspective on adolescent prosocial development

Serge Rombouts is a physicist whose PhD thesis was about functional MRI (fMRI). This visualises activity in regions of the brain. The appealing images of glowing brain regions that emerge from the computer are the result of calculations. According to Rombouts, this isn’t proper artificial intelligence.…

What effect did the lockdown have on young people? Leiden researchers started a study of this in the first year of the covid pandemic. They discovered an impact on the development of the brain areas involved in social behaviour. The researchers published their discovery in Scientific Reports at Nat…

At science festival 'Over de kop', surprising brain facts alternate with confronting stories from the operating room. Researchers explain why our brains love beans and why you should never ride a racing bike without a helmet.

There is a link in adolescents between brain connections and impulsiveness. Leiden researchers have discovered that these connections also predict which adolescents will make more impulsive choices two years further on.

Which brain cell does what, when Parkinson's disease arises? It won't be long before this jigsaw is solved piece by piece. Ahmed Mahfouz, computational biologist, combines bio-knowledge from Leiden with algorithms from Delft and is getting closer to finding the key.

Children’s brains react in the same way to social feedback as adults’ brains. But handling frustration or aggression after being rejected is a different matter, developmental psychologist Michelle Achterberg has discovered. Using fMRI techniques, the development of the child brain has now been studied…

Adolescents who were more popular among their classmates in junior school are often the ones who are more inclined to share things fairly with others. During this sharing process, 'social' areas of the brain are more strongly activated than in adolescents who are less popular. This is the finding of…

Psychologist Bernadet Klaassens initiated a large fMRI study on the effect of drugs on brain networks in aging and Alzheimer's disease. It generated a unique data set and insight into a new method to develop drugs for patients with Alzheimer's.