I am currently a senior investigator at the Brain & Development Research Center and Professor of Neuroscience of Social Relations at the Developmental and Educational Psychology unit of Leiden University in the Netherlands. My ambition is to investigate the developmental patterns of individual behavior and neural functioning within the social context of interpersonal relationships.
My broad research interests cover the area of social and emotional development across the life span and its links with brain development. My current research focuses on the development of the social brain across adolescence, particularly in relation to social decision-making and in the peer context. During my PhD project at the Developmental Psychology Department at Radboud University Nijmegen I conducted cross-sectional and longitudinal studies to examine the development of dyadic peer relationships in school classes of early and mid-adolescents, focusing both on friendships (based on mutual liking) and antipathy relationships (based on mutual disliking). These studies demonstrated the heterogeneity within the peer relationships and the links of various roles in relationships with psychosocial adjustment. Within this project I also examined the neural correlates of friendships in young adulthood using fMRI at the Donders Institute. This innovative study was among the first to highlight the brain regions that are involved in social interactions with friends.
After obtaining my Ph.D., I joined the Brain & Development Research Center at Leiden University as a post-doctoral researcher. My work there explored the neurocognitive development of social decision-making in childhood and adolescence. I have used economic exchange paradigms such as the Ultimatum Game and brain imaging techniques, to examine the emotion-inducing (e.g., fairness, reciprocity) and emotion-regulating (e.g., self-interest) networks underlying social-decision making processes across participants aged between 8-25. My current research line falls within the field of Social Developmental Neuroscience and focuses on the neural correlates of social decision-making in the peer context across childhood and adolescence. I have been awarded a VENI grant from NWO (“The social brain in adolescence: Examining peer interactions from a developmental social neuroscience perspective”, (2011-2016) to investigate the links between psychosocial and brain development in peer interactions across adolescence. In this research I employed behavioural experiments and fMRI methods to examine social cognition and underlying neural mechanisms during interactions with peers.
My broad research interests cover the area of social and emotional development across the life span and its links with brain development. My current research focuses on the development of the social brain across adolescence, particularly in relation to social decision-making and in the peer context. During my PhD project at the Developmental Psychology Department at Radboud University Nijmegen I conducted cross-sectional and longitudinal studies to examine the development of dyadic peer relationships in school classes of early and mid-adolescents, focusing both on friendships (based on mutual liking) and antipathy relationships (based on mutual disliking). These studies demonstrated the heterogeneity within the peer relationships and the links of various roles in relationships with psychosocial adjustment. Within this project I also examined the neural correlates of friendships in young adulthood using fMRI at the Donders Institute. This innovative study was among the first to highlight the brain regions that are involved in social interactions with friends.
After obtaining my Ph.D., I joined the Brain & Development Research Center at Leiden University as a post-doctoral researcher. My work there explored the neurocognitive development of social decision-making in childhood and adolescence. I have used economic exchange paradigms such as the Ultimatum Game and brain imaging techniques, to examine the emotion-inducing (e.g., fairness, reciprocity) and emotion-regulating (e.g., self-interest) networks underlying social-decision making processes across participants aged between 8-25. My current research line falls within the field of Social Developmental Neuroscience and focuses on the neural correlates of social decision-making in the peer context across childhood and adolescence. I have been awarded a VENI grant from NWO (“The social brain in adolescence: Examining peer interactions from a developmental social neuroscience perspective”, (2011-2016) to investigate the links between psychosocial and brain development in peer interactions across adolescence. In this research I employed behavioural experiments and fMRI methods to examine social cognition and underlying neural mechanisms during interactions with peers.
