A novel mathematical model describes spatial-temporal drug distribution within one or more brain units, which are cubic representations of a piece of brain tissue with brain capillaries at the edges.

Promotor: Prof.dr. M. Danhof, Co-promotor: E.C.M. de Lange

The work presented in this thesis addresses the role of the locus coeruleus (LC) - norepinephrine (NE) system in various aspects of human cognition, and the modulation of brain state.

Professor of Human Genetics Willeke van Roon will give her inaugural lecture on Monday 28 March entitled: ‘Translational research, where small parts make the bigger picture.’ She will emphasise how university medical centres should take responsibility for finding treatments for very rare diseases.

How is structural and functional brain development related to behavioral change in cognitive-control, impulse regulation, and socio-emotional functioning?

Accurate prediction of the unbound drug concentration-time profile at the CNS target site is crucial for the assessment of the right drug concentration-effect relationship. PBPK models have supported the PK prediction of the CNS target sites and the translation of PK data between species and between…

Nowadays children grow up with social media. This may influence the development of brain regions involved in social interaction. In their review article in Nature Communications, Crone and Konijn illustrate how neuroscience can contribute to a better understanding of how media and peers influence adolescents'…

What is the relation between brain development and social and cognitive development across childhood, adolescence and adulthood?

An Integrative Approach to the Hominin Record

Researchers have been working for centuries in mapping the human brain. But in the year 2017 some brain structures remain still not well mapped, especially those located at the brainstem. In this paper, we quantified the test–retest reliability of imaging the brainstem nucleus locus coeruleus in vivo…

Neuroimaging research has greatly advanced our insights on how the brain is organized. Now is the time for the next step: Imagine what would be possible when we cannot only map brain-functioning, but use neuroimaging to voluntarily regulate brain-activity!

Your brain responds in a predictable way when it encounters new or difficult tasks. This unique book teaches you concrete techniques rooted in cognitive science that will improve the way you learn and think about code.

This interdisciplinary minor emphasizes the diversity and complementarity of various cognitive neuroscience approaches to understanding the human brain.

This minor focuses on the cognitive processes that influence the interaction between the brain and the mind.

The Brain and Education lab is a research group in the Institute of Education and Child Studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands. We use a Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience approach to study the development of complex cognitive processes involved in learning and academic skills such as reading…

Fundamental insights into the working of the adolescent brain help lecturers and parents to teach adolescents to function better. Professor Eveline Crone studies executive functions – such as planning and behaviour – in the adolescent brain.

Do medicines arrive in the right amount at the right spot in our brain? By making a model that depicts our brain in small 'brain blocks', Esmée Vendel tries to find an answer to this question. Her new, mathematical model predicts the concentration of medicines in the brain over time and space. Vendel…

Dementia is a progressive disease, diagnosed at a relatively late stage when intervention may not be effective. Aim of the research is to study scans of brain networks to help discover the early network changes related to dementia. Early diagnosis may benefit effectiveness of future treatment.

The more opportunities a child has to learn and develop, the stronger his or her future position in society. Leiden University investigates how the brain picks up information, and how learning processes can be influenced positively.

Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease are the most common neurodegenerative disorders. Unfortunately, no effective treatments are currently available to halt the progression of these neuroinflammatory diseases [1].

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What is the neural basis of social decision-making across childhood, adolescence and adulthood and what are the developmental patterns in terms of behavior and brain activation?

The factors that dynamically sculpt the inter-regional correlation of brain patterns are poorly understood. Here, we test the hypothesis that they are shaped by the catecholaminergic neuromodulators norepinephrine and dopamine.

This study is the first to directly relate brain development to sex differences and school performance. The results debunk the myth that brain development is slower in boys.

Smartphone behaviors are so common but how does the brain generate this behavior? The Cognition in the digital environment laboratory (CODELAB) investigated the brain activity surrounding smartphone interactions with the help of Artificial Intelligence. According to their research, the brain fluidly…

This project looks at how the native language influences processing mechanisms of non-native language(s) as well has how it influences brain structure and functional connectivity.

The Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition (LIBC) is a network that stimulates interdisciplinary exchange of knowledge and expertise on topics related to brain and cognition and focuses on science valorisation and outreach.

A neurobiological perspective on individual differences in social competence

Can playing certain games decrease cognitive decline or even enhance cognitive performance in the aging population?

Using brain imaging to discover the area in the brain that recognizes emotion.

Can the (industrial) herbal extraction process be mathematically described and can this model be used to optimize the extraction in terms of quality and economical parameters?

This project investigates properties of quantity expressions across languages from the perspective of how quantity is represented in the human brain.

A P300-based Brain Computer Interface character speller, also known as P300 speller, has been an important communication pathway, under extensive research, for people who lose motor ability, such as patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or spinal-cord injury because a P300 speller allows human-beings…

We strive to address the challenge of constructing a modeling language to write software which can take advantage of recent hardware developments (multicore, cloud) without compromising in its abstraction levels.

Promotor: Roeland M.H. Merks

PhD defence

Existing work in probabilistic language modeling can be mostly divided into two categories:

Serge Rombouts is a physicist whose PhD thesis was about functional MRI (fMRI). This visualises activity in regions of the brain. The appealing images of glowing brain regions that emerge from the computer are the result of calculations. According to Rombouts, this isn’t proper artificial intelligence.…

Description of Biotic ligand models: making an inventory of available models & assessment of the variability of the predicted HC5 using the BLMs in different Dutch water types (2005 - 2007)

Mathematical models of software systems enable characterizations, abstractions, simulations, and analysis of complex software during its development.

Epithelial-mesenchymal plasticity (EMP) and tumor cell migration play an important role in cancer progression, and an improved understanding of the mechanisms underlying these concepts is essential for developing new targeted approaches.

Real-life processes are characterized by dynamics involving time. Examples are walking, sleeping, disease progress in medical treatment, and events in a workflow.

At science festival 'Over de kop', surprising brain facts alternate with confronting stories from the operating room. Researchers explain why our brains love beans and why you should never ride a racing bike without a helmet.

In 2016, Dutch University Medical Centres (UMCs) developed the self-evaluation tool based on the PhD Competence Model. Our partners at Utrecht University are making a digital version of the tool available free of charge for our PhD candidates at Leiden University, including for candidates who are not…

Which brain cell does what, when Parkinson's disease arises? It won't be long before this jigsaw is solved piece by piece. Ahmed Mahfouz, computational biologist, combines bio-knowledge from Leiden with algorithms from Delft and is getting closer to finding the key.

Promotor: Prof.dr. E. Deprettere

Psychologist Bernadet Klaassens initiated a large fMRI study on the effect of drugs on brain networks in aging and Alzheimer's disease. It generated a unique data set and insight into a new method to develop drugs for patients with Alzheimer's.

During adolescence, mood disorder onset peaks. Mood variability is associated with negative mental health outcomes, so understanding biological factors that might be associated with mood variability, such as sleep and structural brain development, could elucidate the mechanisms underlying mood and anxiety…

How do practice and theory reinforce one another in neuroscience? Professor Birte Forstmann’s inaugural lecture on 2 October will be about building interdisciplinary bridges between cognitive neuroscience and cognitive models. Her approach may lead to brain research with fewer side-effects for patie…

The aim of this thesis was to develop novel treatment strategies for different types of eye melanoma utilizing zebrafish models. We first establish orthotopic and ectopic xenograft models for uveal and conjunctival melanoma by engraftment of the immortalized cells derived from these tumors into zebrafish…