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?

A minor allows you to develop your knowledge beyond the boundaries of your study programme, or to specialise further in your own field of study. You can follow a minor in Leiden and also in Delft or Rotterdam.

Suddenly getting lost, failing to recognise family members, or forgetting words and names are well-known symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Psychologists have now discovered that the disease also manifests in more subtle ways: through the rhythm of finger tapping.

What if you get excluded? Are apps against fear and stress effective? How do you keep your brain in shape? The first season of the new podcastseries ‘BreinGeheim’ is about the social contexts of adolescent development and how teens become resilient individuals. Leiden-based behavioural scientist sit…

What influence do children’s upbringing and education have on their world view? This is the question Professor Judi Mesman is trying to answer. For her research and public outreach activities, she has just been awarded the prestigious Stevin Prize, the highest award in the Netherlands for a researcher…

How do you deal with bullying? How can you motivate young people? At the NeurolabNL symposium a multidisciplinary research team launched an interactive book for teachers and youth workers. This digital book offers the latest insights and plenty of useful tips and advice. Children’s Ombudsman Margrite…

In the new video series 'The World of Linguistics', alumni and academics talk about their passion for their field. Student Aline-Priscillia is particularly curious about how language is processed in the brain.

Neuroscientist Anne Urai has been awarded a Veni subsidy to further develop her ideas over the coming four years on how the brain makes choices. Why did she receive the award? Urai answers five questions about her Veni grant for young researchers.

Neuroscientist Simeen Tabassi Mofrad has been awarded a Rubicon grant to conduct research on cortical and allelic determinants of age-related cognitive decline at University of Oxford. She holds the first rank among all Rubicon applicants in NWO Domain Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH).

A team of developmental psychologists and educators are involving young people in the communication about brain development. A second team of Leiden neuroscientists conducts research into music and spatial skills and searches for healthcare applications. Both teams were awarded a sum of 10,000 euros…

What happens in the mind of someone with ADHD? GZ psychologist Bianca Boyer discusses this in a two-part episode of the Dutch 'Podcast Psycholoog'. She likes to look beyond the symptoms described in the DSM-5. 'Those are just the tip of the iceberg.'

Hanneke Hulst explaines how she is trying to bridge the gap between science and health care. ‘For a neuroscientist to actually contribute to solutions for patients, you have to work across disciplines.’

The company QuantActions promises that through capturing and analysing the data of smartphones it will be able to “detect important indicators related to mental/neurological health”. Neuroscientist Arko Ghosh is the company’s cofounder and talks in The Guardian about tappigraphy patterns.

Martina Huber, Jacqueline Labra Munoz research Alzheimer's disease. They study ferritine, iron storage in the brain. An inbalance of iron could play a role in this form of dementia.

All five episodes of the first season of 'Breingeheim' are now available to listen on Spotify. The first season of the podcastseries is about the social contexts of adolescent development and how teens become resilient individuals. In every episode, a new Leiden-based behavioural scientist and an adolescent…

'We can uncover new, non-pharmacological strategies to help individuals, especially those struggling with weight los.' Psychologist Aleksandrina Skvortsova receives a LUF grant for her research project 'Mind Over Meal: Unraveling placebo effects on hunger, food-related brain activity and food choice…

When under duress innocent suspects can make a false confession. Why is this? Legal psychologist Linda Geven will give a talk about this at the Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition’s Brain & Law event. At this symposium (in Dutch) on 16 September you can attend talks on fascinating brain research…

During the event 'Fout?' by De Jonge Akademie, Ellen de Bruijn held a lecture about the social context of making mistakes and the psychological elements of learning from it.

In donut-shaped buildings, particle accelerators take super-detailed X-ray images. Yet those images are not good enough to learn how to drive on hydrogen for example. Mathematics PhD student Allard Hendriksen has developed an algorithm that improves the images without having to learn from data from…

Psychologist Myrthe Jansen conducted research into the performance monitoring that constantly takes place in our heads. People with obsessive-compulsive symptoms are more afraid to make a mistake that harms others, than when they make a mistake that only harms themselves. Jansen received her PhD on…

Teens with depression appear to be more sensitive to criticism from their parents than their healthy peers are.

As Professor of Translational Neuro-oncology, Marike Broekman researches how brain tumour treatment can be improved. She will discuss this in her inaugural lecture along with her work as a neurosurgeon and the importance of a positive workplace culture.

Om de weg te vinden letten sommige mensen op de omgeving, anderen onthouden waar ze links of rechts af moeten slaan. Mensen met Niet Aangeboren Hersenletsel (NAH) rapporteren navigatieproblemen. Om opnieuw te leren navigeren heeft neurowetenschapper Milan van der Kuil als revalidatietherapie een serious…

Are you trying to write a perfect paper on your first attempt? That appears to be efficient, but in the end it usually is a waste of time. Writing and revision are separate processes; the first makes more use of the creative right brain hemisphere, while the latter appeals primarily to the critical…

We talk with Michiel van Elk, about his research into mapping what effects psychedelics have on the human brain and what this means for the possible clinical application of these drugs. The cognitive psychologist shares his findings with a sober view, bringing critics and fanatics closer together for…

A team of researchers from Young Academy and the Huygens ING/NL Lab has brought a three-century-old fragrance to life based on a recipe by Constantijn Huygens. The fragrance makes the past more tangible and can help people experience history differently.

Nausea, neurologic pain and hair loss: some of the severe side effects of chemotherapy. Not necessary, biochemist Liyan Zhang showed. Together with Leiden biologists and others, she achieved great results with a drug that is only active in combination with light. Zhang will defend her PhD on 4 July.

Laughing, crying or even having a moan together: close friends are worth their weight in gold in good and bad times. Researcher Lisa Schreuders explains the effects on body and mind. Can we give that magical click a helping hand? And what advice does she have for first-years in their new city?

Supercomputer ALICE has been expanded, making it even more powerful and faster. This means researchers and students can work with heavier models. From language research to brain activity scans, this expansion is good news for a variety of disciplines. So who gets to work with this prima donna?

In the first instalment of the three-part podcast series Óf Bones, Brains, and Pink Elephants, three students of Utrecht University interview Dr Amanda Henry on dental care in the past. Why do we need to brush our teeth, and why didn't our ancestors?

In the academic year 2022-2023 the Social Resilience and Security interdisciplinary programme will offer a new minor for students who are interested in studying interpersonal violence and who are entering the third year of their Bachelor's degree. The announcement went down well with students: the available…

The fact that scientists are increasingly better able to access molecular cell and tissue data also brings with it a new challenge: how can scientists find the information they need for research among the vast amount of data available?

Can humans sense where north is, using what is known as magnetoreception? This question had master’s student Björn Keyser (Media Technology) so intrigued that he started crowdfunding to be able to study this together with the California Institute of Technology.

Education

Piercing through the skull with an ice pick, administering electric shocks without an anaesthetic, or applying leeches to the uterus: these may seem like medieval methods of torture, but they are in fact therapies used in medicine. Willem van der Does writes about all of them in his new book. ‘Physicians…

However tempting it may be to lock yourself in your room or in favourite library nook in the days running up to an important exam, it's not a very wise choice, stresses neuroscientist Judith Schomaker.

Adolescents with good friendships experience fewer anxiety and depression symptoms, PhD student Iris Koele discovered in her research on high school students' social relationships. 'As a psychologist, I include friends in the treatment plan: who do you call when things are not going well?'

Innovation through repetition. That is how university lecturer Jurriaan Witteman describes his research on the automatic processing of angry voices in the brain. The original research was conducted 20 years ago, but, with an NWO grant, Witteman is now going to see if those results are accurate.

In Dutch magazine De Psycholoog, Anne-Laura van Harmelen talks about the use of the term resilience and argues that resilience is concept that needs further explanation.

The outreach and engagement platform BrainTrain consists of five enthusiastic students of the masters programme Forensic Family Science. As part of their project, the students visit high-schools to teach adolescents about the brain, make them experience that their own reality is not always the only…

In Dutch magazine De Psycholoog, Anne-Laura van Harmelen talks about the impact traumatic experiences, especially for those who are growing up.

Is aggression always bad? PhD research by psychologist Simone Dobbelaar shows that it is not. In fact, children who occasionally fiercely defend themselves and stand up for their peers often feel better mentally.

Why do some smokers quit much more easily than others? Can we think ourself to insomnia? And does playing music together help to calm conflicts? Psychology students investigated these questions and presented their findings during the Psychology Science Day 2023.

Although it can be a challenge at times, parents should keep communicating with their teens. Also about how they parent. Research by developmental psychologist Loes Janssen shows that parenting can be perceived quite differently by family members and mood plays an important role. Parents often parent…

In brain diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, proteins clump together to form fibres. ‘Chaperone proteins’ unravel those fibres, but in the test tube biochemist Anne Wentink saw that this can also cause new problems. She is going to find out what happens inside cells to determine what a drug…

‘If you want to implement open science, you at least need someone at each faculty who can help researchers to solve practical problems.’ Dorien Huijser spent two years managing the transition to a new working method at the Institute of Psychology’s Brain and Development Research Center.

In the academic year 2022-2023 the Social Resilience and Security interdisciplinary programme will offer a new minor for students who are interested in studying interpersonal violence and who are entering the third year of their Bachelor's degree. You can register for this minor (from 2 May) in your…

For decades, linguists have racked their brains over the question of precisely how the syntax of various languages is different. PhD candidate Martin Kroon has developed a computer system that brings us closer to finding an answer. His PhD defence is on 10 November.

Glorious sunshine, dozens of enthusiastic academics and huge numbers of Leiden residents ensured that this year’s special jubilee version of 3 October University was a great success.