I’m a PhD student at the Donders Institute for Cognitive Neuroimaging and the Behavioural Science Institute. My project investigates the control of social emotional behavior in adolescents to find predictive markers for the development of social anxiety and aggression. To examine longitudinal associations of these tendencies from childhood to adolescence, I use a combination of behavioral, neural (fMRI), physiological (hormonal measurements), and genetic techniques. The project is carried out in collaboration with the Nijmegen Longitudinal Study on Infant and Child Development (NLS), which has followed children and their families since infancy. Due to the longitudinal design of the study, it is possible to investigate causal influences of potential risk factors. This is crucial for the development of early symptom detection and more efficient therapeutic or preventive measures for social affective disorders. These disorders not only heavily impact an individual’s societal functioning, but also affect society as a whole.
Selected publications:
Tyborowska, A., Volman, I., Smeekens, S., Toni, I., & Roelofs, K. (2016). Testosterone during Puberty Shifts Emotional Control from Pulvinar to Anterior Prefrontal Cortex, 36(23), 6156–6164. http://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3874-15.2016