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.

Our childhood years largely determine how we will fare later in life. In the first two decades of our life, our brain is still developing, which is clearly reflected in our behaviour. By studying how the young brain develops and how children behave, researchers can learn important information about…

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

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'…

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

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.

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.

A neurobiological perspective on individual differences in social competence

Earning some quick money by drug trafficking, committing an act of violence or almost collapsing under performance pressure. In the four-part NeurolabNL Young vodcast young people talk openly with neuroscientists about high-risk behaviour and performance pressure. How did they find their way back?

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.

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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!

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

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

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…

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…

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.

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.

During adolescence, mood disorder onset peaks. Mood variability is associated with negative mental health outcomes, so understanding biological factors that might be associated with mood variability, such as sleep and structural brain development, could elucidate the mechanisms underlying mood and anxiety…

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.

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?

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

The development process of any software has become extremely important not just in the IT industry, but in almost every business or domain of research.

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.

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…

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].

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…

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.

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

The brain structure of young people with conduct disorder differs significantly from that of their typically developing peers. This is the conclusion of an international study that analysed more than two thousand MRI scans, recently published in The Lancet Psychiatry. Dr Moji Aghajani, one of the principal…

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

This study tests whether behavioural problems at a young age are related to early reading and mathematics development.

Anthropogenic noise negatively affects wildlife in a wide range of taxonomic groups.

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.

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…

Sarah Giest, Assistant Professor at Leiden University, and Ishani Mukherjee researched the topic of 'Behavioural Insights Teams (BITs) and Policy Change: An Exploration of Impact, Location, and Temporality of Policy Advice'.

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…

Children and adolescents really do use their ‘smart’ brain areas. This has been confirmed by an extensive and long-running study of the brain carried out by developmental psychologist Sabine Peters . Her findings can have important consequences for education. PhD defence 27 January.

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.

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

Researchers at Leiden study group behaviour. One of their findings is that when people make sacrifices for another member of their group, it is probably instinctive. Insights of this kind enable us to better understand and influence the social processes in a neighbourhood or company.

A neuro-ecological perspective on adolescent prosocial development

On June 10, Michelle Achterberg received the prize for best dissertation from the Dutch Neurofederation, the network of Dutch neuroscientists, for her thesis 'Like me, ore else...'. Achterberg obtained her doctorate cum laude from the Gravitation Program 'Samen Uniek' of the Leiden Consortium on Individual…