Hello, I am Hannah Niermann. I became intrigued by primary defensive stress mechanisms and their role in stress-related psychopathology during an assistantship funded by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (KNAW), and later during my research master internship. Subsequently, I obtained a NWO research talent grant, enabling me to further study the development of human stress-systems in a PhD project. My aim is to understand the development of human freezing behavior in relation to the development of stress-related psychopathology. My PhD project involves systematic investigations of human bodily freezing responses to threatening stimuli at various time points in a unique longitudinal study. In this study we, tested adolescents at a critical transition stage in their lives, between the age 14 of 17. This project will advance theoretical insights in the development of human freezing behavior. It will also contribute to defining risk markers for the development of stress-related symptoms. In addition, it provides a tool for the assessment of primary freezing responses in children, which may be of clinical relevance.
Selected publications:
Niermann, H.C.M., Figner, B., Tyborowska, A., van Peer, J.M., Cillessen, A.H.N., & Roelofs K. (2017). Defensive freezing links Hypothalamic-Pituitary-
Niermann, H.C.M., Figner, B., & Roelofs, K. (2017). Individual differences in defensive stress-responses: The potential relevance for psychopathology. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences. pdf.
Roelofs, K., Niermann, H.C.M., Koch, S., & Klumpers, F. (2017). Stress en stressgedrag. In S. Dekker, & J. Van Baren-Nawrocka (Eds.),Wetenschappelijke doorbraken de klas in. Nijmegen: Wetenschapsknooppunt Radboud Universiteit.
Niermann, H.C.M., Ly, V., Smeekens, S., Figner, B., Riksen-Walraven, M., & Roelofs, K. (2015). Infant attachment predicts bodily freezing in adolescence: Evidence from a prospective longitudinal study. Frontiers in Behavioural Neuroscience. pdf.
Niermann, H.C.M., & Scheres, A. (2014). The relation between procrastination and symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in undergraduate students. International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research. pdf.
van Luijtelaar, G., Mishra, A.M., Edelbroek, P., Coman, D., Frankenmolen, N., Schaapsmeerders, P., Covolato, G., Danielson, N., Niermann, H., Janeczko, K., Kiemeneij, A., Burinov, J., Bashyal, C., Coquillette, M., Lüttjohann, A., Hyder, F., Blumenfeld, H., & van Rijn, C.M. (2013). Anti-epileptogenesis: Electrophysiology, behaviour, and diffusion tensor imaging in a genetic absence model. Neurobiology of Disease. pdf.