The experiments described in this thesis employ local lentiviral knockdowns in brain areas of female zebra finches followed by behavioural assays consisting of preference and Go/Nogo tasks.

Are you thinking about studying Cultural Analysis: Literature and Theory? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

Promotor: K.E. Schalm, Co-promotor: S.S. Lee

'Politics of Withdrawal' considers the significance of practices and theories of withdrawal for radical thinking today.

Western thought has often dismissed shadows as fictional, but what if fictions reveal original truths?

This six-weeks online course delves into the research behind terrorism as it unpacks the assumptions and impacts of both terrorism and counterterrorism.

The Summer School on International Humanitarian Law is designed by the Grotius Centre Kalshoven-Gieskes Forum on International Humanitarian Law. The announcement for the next edition is scheduled to take place in January 2025.

We study the structure, dynamics and physics of complex networks emerging from the intricate interconnectedness of the constituents of large systems.

The terms ‘social’ , ‘collective’ or ‘public’ memory, are often contrasted with ‘private’, ‘individual’ or ‘personal’ memory. All these terms derive from a fairly new and interdisciplinary scholarly field that is often referred to as ‘memory studies’, and that according to some critics has developed…

Promotor: J. Zaanen

Researchers at Leiden University have mapped genes that cause breast cancer cells to migrate. The Leiden toxicologists Professor Bob van de Water, Dr Wies van Roosmalen, Dr Sylvia E. Le Dévédec and colleagues studied 1500 individual genes. They found eight, including the SRPK1 gene, that regulate the…

With the aid of physics and a minuscule magnet, researchers have discovered a new structure of telomeric DNA. Telomeres are sometimes seen as the key to living longer. They protect genes from damage but get a bit shorter each time a cell divides. If they become too short, the cell dies. The new discovery…

On the 28th of September Go Hirasawa successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

This study looks at the question of how and at what level students in primary teacher education can integrate theory and practice, and how the organisation of their learning environment, focusing especially on mathematics and pedagogy, can contribute to that.

The focus of our theoretical research is understanding the behaviour of soft condensed matter, physical matter which is deformed or structurally altered by thermal fluctuations or small stresses.

Political protest is often at least partially about the question of legitimacy. How can we distinguish whether a regime is legitimate, or merely purports to be so?

Is there a causal mechanism underlying the decision to attack another country when on the brink of war? If so, does this mechanism differ between regime-types? Political scientist Femke Bakker (Leiden University) addresses this question from a political psychological and comparative perspective and…

Harvesting rice from the same field, without planting new rice plants? A discovery may bring this scenario closer. Leiden scientists have discovered a gene that allows annual plants to grow after flowering, instead of dying. Publication on 13 April in Nature Plants.

In this work we describe three methods to improve the performance of Quantum Field Theory calculations.

Organized by the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, this programme enables students and professionals from all over the world to engage in discussions on the prospects and challenges of international criminal justice. The announcement for the next edition is scheduled to take place…

Schalm

On 16 april 2020, Andrew Fink defended his thesis 'The Importance of Conspiracy Theory in Extremist Ideology and Propaganda'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. A. Ellian.

Following their application to system biological models, control theory techniques have further potential to aid in the understanding and application of quantitative systems pharmacology models.

Systems with local constraints is a new finding in recent researches on complex systems. The heterogeneous spatial interactions and the temporal dependencies among those numerous units make it difficult to describe by traditional statistical physics.

The linguistic project constitutes the connection between the two other subprojects. It consists of two parts.

The next generation of high-contrast imaging instruments on space-based observatories requires sophisticated wavefront sensing and control in addition to a high-performance coronagraph.

Climate change is a challenge for both current and future generations. New biological resources have to be developed in order to meet the demand for energy as well as the demand for food.

How can we gain insights in the connection between teaching practices and theoretical elaborations of purposes of education?

While self-driving cars and autonomous weapon systems have received a great deal of attention in media and research, the general requirements of ethical life in today’s digitalizing reality have not been made sufficiently visible and evaluable.

The relevance of intentionality to the interpretation of Aristotle was first suggested by Brentano in his Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. Here we take our starting point from Brentano and investigate how Brentano’s concept of intentionality is rooted in Aristotle.

Salicylic acid (SA) is a plant hormone, which is involved in the defense responses to pathogens and to abiotic stress, and in the regulation of plant growth and development.

We exploit secondary metabolites of plant to develop pharmaceutical compounds and we genetically modify plant genomes to improve crops.

This Thesis shows discoveries in non-linear astrochemical kinetics as well as a deeper analysis of dark clouds chemistry.

‘If we don’t start talking about this, who else will?’ This is what Arjan Lankester, paediatrician/immunologist at the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) and Professor of Paediatrics, thought when it seemed that various extremely effective gene therapies for rare diseases would no longer be available…

Plant-microbe interaction resulted in different physio/chemical responses by host plant and interacting rhizobacteria.

Just like us, plants also produce growth hormones, and they also go through an ageing process. The study of the genes and mechanisms behind these processes is useful not only for crop breeding and agriculture, but also for medical research. That is the view held by Professor of Plant Developmental Genetics…

This thesis is is made of three parts. The first part describes a generalization of the Chabauty's method, that can be used to determine the rational points of a curve such that s+g>r+1, where g is the genusof the curve, r is the rank of the Mordell-Weil group of the jacobian of the curve and s is…

The book offers different theoretical perspectives to help examine the process of public sector reform. In addition it gives an overview of the major trends in the core areas of the functioning of the public sector.

This collection brings into conversation several kinds of scholarship on medieval authorship which have tended to remain separate over the last two to three decades, a period of steadily increasing scholarly interest in this topic.

PhD student Esmee Koedoot studied the underlying processes responsible for metastases in a dangerous type of breast cancer. She hopes to find new possibilities to fight the disease. In December 2019 she obtained her doctorate cum laude.

So-called

Cognitive enhancement reflects the use of any (legitimate) means such as for example food supplements to reach one’s personal best.

Playing the piano with your forearm, plucking the strings, sawing through the piano: pianist Luk Vaes's doctoral dissertation covers all the techniques of play for which a piano is NOT designed. His defence ceremony will consist of three concerts and a public defence. 'Musicians were using the interior…

Leiden biologists have shown that a gene present in plants, animals and yeasts does play an important role in plants, although for years the gene was considered unimportant. It turns out the gene plays a crucial role in the development of vascular tissue in plants. Publication in Nature Plants on 11…

On 12 mei 2020, Darryl Robinson defended 'Exploring Justice in Extreme Cases: Criminal Law Theory and International Criminal Law'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. C. Stahn.