People

Principal Investigator

Roshan Cools completed her undergraduate degree in Experimental Psychology, at the University of Groningen , The Netherlands, in 1998. She then moved to Trevor Robbins’ lab at the University of Cambridge, UK, for an M Phil degree (1999), a PhD degree (2002), a St John’s College Junior Research Fellowship (2002-2006) and a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellowship (2002 – 2006). She spent two post-doc years at UC Berkeley working with Mark D’Esposito from 2003, before moving back to Cambridge in 2005, where she obtained a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (2006 -2007). In November 2007 she returned to The Netherlands, where she is now Principal Investigator at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour (Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging) and Professor of Cognitive Neuropsychiatry at the Department of Psychiatry of the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre.

Post docs

Guillaume Sescousse completed his undergraduate degree in biochemical engineering in Lyon, France, in 2005. During that time he also completed an internship in Alain Dagher’s group at the Montreal Neurological Institute (Montreal, Canada), where he worked on the neural correlates of gambling. He then moved back to Lyon to do an MSc and a PhD in neuroscience under the supervision of Jean-Claude Dreher at the CNRS Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience. His thesis examined reward processing in healthy adults and various populations of psychiatric patients. In early 2011 he was awarded a two-year Rubicon postdoctoral fellowship and joined the lab of Roshan Cools at the Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging (Nijmegen, The Netherlands) to pursue a research project investigating the links between brain dopamine and gambling behavior.

Hanneke den Ouden (post-doc) completed her undergraduate degree in Life Sciences at University College Utrecht, The Netherlands, in 2002. She then continued with an MSc programme in Neuroscience and Cognition at the University of Utrecht , part of which she spent completing research projects at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience in London with Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, and at Harvard University with Marc Hauser. She moved to London for an MPhil (2004) and PhD degree (2005) in the Wellcome Trust PhD programme in Neuroscience at University College London. She completed her PhD on the role of prediction errors in associative learning under the supervision of Karl Friston and Klaas Enno Stephan at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging. In April 2009 she started a postdoctoral position at the Donders institute, working with Roshan Cools on the role of serotonin in decision-making.

Sean James Fallon started his Ph.D in 2006 under the supervision of Adrian Owen at the Medical Research Council's Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit (MRC-CBU), Cambridge, UK. His thesis examined the dopaminergic basis of deficits in planning and attention in healthy older adults and Parkinson's Disease (PD) patients. In April 2010, he moved to the Donders Institute, Netherlands to start a post-doc with Roshan Cools to examine the extent to which the behavioural response to positive or negative feedback is dependent upon frontal and striatal dopamine levels.

PhD students

Martine van Schouwenburg studied Medical Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Groningen. In her current research project she investigates the role of dopamine in cognitive control.

Marieke van der Schaaf completed an undergraduate degree in clinical neuropsychology at the free university in Amsterdam as well as a Neuroscience and Cognition Master’s degree at the University of Utrecht. At the Donders Institute Marieke focuses on the role of dopamine in reward- and punishment-based reversal learning.

Dirk Geurts (PhD student, resident in psychiatry) studied medicine and philosophy at the Radboud University Nijmegen. He is interested in the basic learning(dys)abilities of psychopaths and their neural underpinnings, but also in emotional dysregulation in borderline personality disorder.

Verena Ly completed her Research Master in Clinical and Health Psychology at Leiden University. She received a Mosaic (NWO) grant to conduct 4 years research about 'The neural mechanisms of avoidance learning in social anxiety', under the supervision of Prof Karin Roelofs at the Behavioural Science Institute and Roshan at the Donders Centre.

Daniel von Rhein studied cognitive psychology at the Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. In his current project he studies the effects of gene-environment interaction on cognitive brain functions in ADHD patients.

Jasper Winkel studied psychobiology and cognitive neuroscience at the University of Amsterdam. His research project involves the neuropharmacology and -anatomy of the trade-off between speed and accuracy in decision making.

Mieke van Holstein completed a Master's degree in psychonomics at the University of Amsterdam. As a research assistant she investigated the effects of methylphenidate on motivational and cognitive control in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. She received a Cognitive Neuroscience TopTalent PhD studentship to conduct research regarding the role of dopamine in cortico-striatal circuits.

Katinka von Borries completed a Master's degree in neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience at the Radboud University Nijmegen and clinical psychology at Gent University. She is interested in affective processing in criminal psychopaths, focussing on emotion recognition, approach avoidance behavior and learning from negative and positieve feedback.

Monique Timmer (PhD student, neurology resident) studied medicine at Utrecht University and is currently a neurology resident at the Nijmegen University Medical Center. She is interested in non-motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease and plans to investigate the role of the ventral striatum in depression in PD patients.

Payam Piray has a background in control engineering at the university of Tehran, Iran. He is interested in systems neuroscience, especially the neuropsychological basis of (reinforcement) learning, decision making and cognitive control. His research will focus on cortico-striatal circuits.

Research Assistants

Lieneke Janssen completed an undergraduate degree in psychobiology at the University of Amsterdam and the cognitive neuroscience research master at the Radboud University Nijmegen. She studies the links between brain dopamine and gambling behavior.

Mirjam Bloemendaal completed an undergraduate degree in psychology, a clinical neuropsychology master at the University of Utrecht, and a master in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Amsterdam. She is currently working on dopaminergic modulation of working memory.

Trainees

Carsten Bundt studied psychology at the University of Twente and is currently enrolled in the cognitive neuroscience research master programme of the Donders Institute. He will study the effect of distractors on working memory.

Yvonne Melzer completed a bachelor in cognitive science at the university of Osnabrück and is currenlty enrolled in the Cognitive Neuroscience Research Master programme at the Donders Institute. She received a KNAW assistantship grant and will be working on emotional dysregulation in borderline personality disorder.

Alumni

Esther Aarts (post-doc) studied medical biology at the Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. She graduated in 2004 and then started her PhD project under supervision of Miranda van Turennout and Ardi Roelofs at the Donders Institute, studying cue-based adjustments in cognitive control with fMRI. Between 2008 and 2010, Esther worked as a post-doc with Roshan Cools on the role of dopamine in motivational and cognitive control processes in patient populations (ADHD and Parkinson's disease). She is currently a post-doctoral fellow at UC Berkeley, working with Mark D'Esposito.

Website: www.esther-aarts.com

Peter Smittenaar (research master student) completed a bachelor degree in molecular life sciences (at the University of Nijmegen ) and the Cognitive Neuroscience Research Master Programme of the Donders Institute. In the context of this latter programme, he examined the role of dopamine in reinforcement-based learning and performance in Parkinson’s disease. He is currently enrolled the PhD Programme in Neuroscience at University College, London.

Website: www.petersmittenaar.com/petersmittenaar/

Bram Nusselein (research master student) completed a medical psychology master degree at Tilburg University and the Cognitive Neuroscience Research Master Programme of the Donders Institute, where he studied motivational compensation of cognitive decline in Parkinson's disease.

Joris Elshout (research assistant) completed a Neuroscience and Cognition master degree at the University of Utrecht . At the Donders Institute Joris studied the role of serotonin in decision making.

Sharissa Corporaal (research master student) is completing an internship in the context of her Masters Degree in Biomedical Sciences in July 2011. Her project focused on the effects of reward and punishment on working memory updating.

Kristin Schmidt studied Psychology and Music (undergraduate), and psychological Research Methods (postgraduate) in Leeds and University College London (UK). She is currently investigating the roles of serotonin in reinforcement learning paradigms of decision making. She is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Oxford.