I am employed at the Department of Neuropsychology and Psychopharmacology of Maastricht University. Part of my research focuses on the interactive role of acetylcholine and serotonin, two neurotransmitters, in memory processing. Additionally, I am involved in studies assessing the role of other neurotransmitters in memory and other types of cognition. I mainly collaborate with Arjan Blokland and Wim Riedel.
Several of my experiments have been part of a VENI grant that I obtained in 2007. Until the middle of 2010, I assessed long-term memory processes using several paradigms such as a verbal learning task, a continuous recognition paradigm, and a spatial memory task, after cholinergic and serotonergic manipulations. Next to the behavioral responses, I was very much interested in the brain activity during the performance of those tasks, which were recorded simultaneously. So far I have mainly performed EEG and MEG studies that we are currently analyzing, but I am now also planning my first fMRI project.
Before I came to Maastricht, between February 2004 and June 2005, I have been working at the Cognitive Brain Research Unit in Helsinki, Finland, as a post-doc researcher. Together with Minna Huotilainen en Elina Pihko, I studied cognitive and developmental processes in healthy newborns using MEG. During my 3-month stay in Helsinki in 2008, Minna and I ran another study examining whether newborns here differences between consonant and dissonant sounds.
My research interests generally are:
Learning and Memory
Cognitive Processes
Developmental Processes
Psychopharmacology
Psychophysiology
If you are interested, you can download my PhD thesis, some Publications, or have a look at my Curriculum Vitae. If you have any questions or remarks, please feel free to send me an email.
