Projects
How anxiety transforms human cognition: an Affective Neuroscience perspective Ghent University
Anxiety, a state of apprehension or fear, may provoke cognitive or behavioural disorders and eventually lead to serious medical illnesses. The high prevalence of anxiety disorders in our society sharply contrasts with the lack of clear factual knowledge about the corresponding brain mechanisms at the origin of this profound change in the appraisal of the environment. Little is known about how the psychopathological state of anxiety ultimately ...
Understanding compensatory effort and its influence on processing efficiency in anxiety Ghent University
This project aims to determine how and when (using standard scalp EEG/ ERP methods) anxity (either state or trait) can influence processing efficiency via changes in effort allocation mechanisms.
How anxiety transforms human cognition: an Affective Neuroscience perspective Ghent University
Anxiety, a state of apprehension or fear, may provoke cognitive or behavioural disorders and eventually lead to serious medical illnesses. The high prevalence of anxiety disorders in our society sharply contrasts with the lack of clear factual knowledge about the corresponding brain mechanisms at the origin of this profound change in the appraisal of the environment. Little is known about how the psychopathological state of anxiety ultimately ...
Loneliness Across Adolescence: Associations with Social Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms KU Leuven
Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to developing feelings of loneliness and these feelings of loneliness often co-occur with social anxiety symptoms and depressive symptoms (Epkins & Heckler, 2011; Zahn-Waxler, Klimes-Dougan, & Slattery, 2000). Each of these internalizing problems is associated with a wide range of negative outcomes in multiple domains of adolescents’ lives (Heinrich & Gullone, 2006; Kashdan & Herbert, ...
The role of interoception in anxiety and the underlying neural mechanisms KU Leuven
Anxiety has been shown to be closely linked to higher sensitivity for bodily sensations (interoception). However, the brain mechanisms underlying the relationship between anxiety and interoception are still far from being clear. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to investigate in four thematically linked studies the brain mechanisms underlying the relationship between anxiety and interoception in healthy participants. More specifically, in ...
Research on relapse and reconsolidation of contextual conditioning: implications for the treatment of generalized anxiety. KU Leuven
The role of preoperative anxiety in the development of postoperative delirium in older surgical patients KU Leuven
The overall aim of my PhD study is to assess the role of preoperative anxiety in the development of postoperative delirium (POD) in older surgical patients by reviewing the literature; and by developing, finetuning and evaluating an intervention to reduce preoperative anxiety and the incidence of POD. POD is an adverse complication that manifests as acute and fluctuating alterations of mental status, involving disturbances in attention, ...
Dopamine-ghrelin interactions as novel targets for therapy resistant anxiety disorders Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Deep Brain Stimulation in an Animal Model of Anxiety KU Leuven
In the past decades, considerable efforts have been devoted to documenting and understanding elementary features of fear learning and how they might be involved in the development of anxiety and anxiety disorders, through research in animals, healthy humans and patients. This work has revealed critical roles of extinction deficits, excessive generalization and persistent avoidance in anxious psychopathology. The larger, overarching research ...