Saskia B.J. Koch is postdoctoral researcher at the Donders Center for Cognitive Neuroimaging (DCCN) of the Radboud University Nijmegen. After obtaining her research master’s degree in Cognitive Neuroscience (Cum Laude) at the Radboud University Nijmegen, she worked as research fellow at the University of Melbourne in Australia. Hereafter, she received her PhD at the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam, where she focused on the neural effects of oxytocin administration on affective processing and emotion regulation abilities in patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Her true passion is to reveal neurobiological mechanisms of adaptive emotion regulation, which may ultimately lead to new neurobiological targets to enhance treatment response in psychiatric patients. Currently, she coordinates a large-scale prospective study on automatic defensive responses in the development of trauma-related psychopathology in police recruits. Furthermore, she works on her own research line on the neurobiology of emotion regulation in healthy and clinical samples, combining innovative emotion regulation paradigms with pharmacology, psychophysiology and various neuroimaging techniques, such as fMRI and neurostimulation.
Selected publications:
Koch SBJ, Mars RB, Toni I, Roelofs K. (2018). Emotional control, reappraised. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews. 95:528-534
Koch, SBJ, van Zuiden M, Nawijn L, Frijling JL, Veltman DJ. & Olff, M. (in press). Effects of intranasal oxytocin on distraction as emotion regulation strategy in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder. European Neuropsychopharmacology
Koch SBJ, Klumpers F, Zhang W, Hashemi MM, Kaldewaij R, van Ast VA, Smit A, Roelofs K (2017): The role of automatic defensive responses in the development of posttraumatic stress symptoms in police recruits: protocol of a prospective study. European Journal of Psychotraumatology: 8:1-12.
Koch, S.B.J., van Zuiden, M., Nawijn, L., Frijling, J.L. Veltman, D.J. & Olff, M. (2016). Intranasal oxytocin normalizes amygdala functional connectivity in post-traumatic stress disorder. Neuropsychopharmacology. 41: 2041-51
Koch, S.B.J., van Zuiden, M., Nawijn, L., Frijling, J.L. Veltman, D.J. & Olff, M. (2016). Intranasal oxytocin administration dampens amygdala reactivity towards emotional faces in male and female PTSD patients. Neuropsychopharmacology. 41: 1495-504
Koch, SBJ, van Zuiden M, Nawijn L, Frijling JL, Veltman DJ. & Olff, M. (2014). Intranasal oxytocin as strategy for medication-enhanced psychotherapy of PTSD: Salience processing and fear inhibition processes. Psychoneuroendocrinology: 40: 242-256
Volman I, Roelofs K, Koch SBJ, Verhagen L, Toni I (2011). Anterior prefrontal cortex inhibition impairs control over social emotional actions. Current Biology. 21: 1766–70.