Lab News
Congratulations Dr. Mojtaba!
Congratulations Dr. Mojtaba! Mojtaba successfully was awarded PhD in "Artificial Intelligent and Robotics" entitled "Modelling of Inter-Individual Variability in Computational Mechanisms of Reversal Learning Task", from the University of Teheran, with the highest distinction!
New paper by Johannes Algermissen in Cerebral Cortex
Our study titled “Striatal BOLD and Midfrontal Theta Power Express Motivation for Action” is now published online in the Cerebral Cortex journal. In this study, we examined the mechanisms behind the effect of motivational biases on action selection using simultaneous EEG-fMRI during a Go/NoGo learning task. We found that striatal BOLD selection of active Go responses and correlated with theta power around response time. Within trials, theta power ramped in the fashion of an evidence accumulation signal for the value of making a “Go” response, capturing the faster responding to reward cues. Our findings reveal a dual nature of mid-frontal theta power, with early components reflecting the vmPFC contribution to motivational biases, and late components reflecting their striatal translation into behavior. The paper can be found here.
New paper by Mojtaba Rostami Kandroodi in Psychopharmacology
Our study entitled “Effects of methylphenidate on reinforcement learning depend on working memory capacity” is now published online in the Psychopharmacology journal.
In this study, we investigated the effects of methylphenidate on human behaviour during the probabilistic reversal learning task. We found that there is large inter-individual variability in the effects of methylphenidate on learning and the effects depend on working memory span. Specifically, methylphenidate improved performance by adaptively reducing the effective learning rate in participants with higher working memory capacity.
The paper is open access and you can download it here:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00213-021-05974-w
Helena joins the lab!
We are excited to welcome a new member to the lab! Helena will be joining us for her thesis project, as part of the Cognitive Neuroscience master at the Radboud. Under supervision of Hanneke and Floortje she will be part of the lab’s pharmacological study, examining the effects of dopamine on meta-decision making. Check out her personal page for more information!
Soha joins the lab!
We are welcoming Soha Farboud as a new PhD student to the lab! Soha will be jointly supervised by Hanneke and Lennart Verhagen. She will use Transcranial Ultrasonic Stimulation (TUS) to stimulate the striatum and investigate the effects on motivational behavior. For more information, check out her personal page!
Congrats Jesse, MSc. !
On August 30, our master student Jesse van der Spek successfully defended his thesis “Neural oscillatory mechanisms of adapting motivational biases to aid action selection”.
We were very happy to have Jesse in our lab and wish him all the best in the future!
BBC Reel mini-docu on smart drugs
BBC Reel has interviewed Hanneke on whether and how smart drugs (such as ritaline) can help increase performance in everyday life activities. Watch Hanneke talk about our past findings on individual differences in how these drugs affect behavior!
New paper by Annelies van Nuland in Brain
Our study entitled “Effects of dopamine on reinforcement learning in Parkinson’s disease depend on motor phenotype” is now published in the Brain journal. In this study, we investigated whether interindividual heterogeneity in tremor symptoms could account for the puzzlingly large variability in the effects of dopaminergic medication on reinforcement learning. We found that in non-tremor patients, dopaminergic medication improved reward-based choice, replicating previous studies, whereas dopaminergic medication improved learning from punishment in tremor-dominant patients. The paper can be downloaded here.
Vanessa heading to greener pastures
Vanessa’s time in our lab has come to an end. She will continue her research as a postdoc now working with Prof. Lorenz Deserno at the University of Wuerzburg in Germany. Besides her postdoc, Vanessa has also decided to pursue a medical degree.
We wish her all the best for the future!
New paper in PLOS Biology
Our study titled “Modeling flexible behavior in childhood to adulthood shows age-dependent learning mechanisms and less optimal learning in autism in each age group” is now published online in the PLOS Biology journal. In this study, we investigated how flexible behavior changes developmentally in ASD. The results show that autistic individuals showed on average more perseveration and less feedback sensitivity than TD individuals, and that older age groups showed more feedback sensitivity than younger age groups. Furthermore, dominant learning mechanisms underpinning flexible behavior where found to differ across developmental stages and reduced flexible behavior in ASD was driven by less optimal learning on average within each age group. In autistic children, perseverative errors were positively related to anxiety symptoms, and in autistic adults, perseveration (indexed by both task errors and model parameter estimates) was positively related to restricted, repetitive behaviors. The paper can be found here.
Ben joins the lab!
We are welcoming Benjamin Kop as a new PhD student to the lab! Ben will be jointly supervised by Hanneke and Lennart Verhagen. He will use Transcranial Ultrasonic Stimulation (TUS) to stimulate the basal ganglia and investigate its effects on behavior. For more information, check out his personal page!
Jesse joins the lab!
We are happy to welcome a new member to our lab! Jesse (23) is a student at the Cognitive Neuroscience Research Master at Radboud University, Nijmegen. Under the daily supervision of Johannes, he will be working on his Master’s thesis research project where he will look at the neural underpinnings of motivational biases during learning and decision-making processes. For more information, check out his personal page.
Congrats to Dr. Annelies van Nuland!
Annelies van Nuland defended her doctoral thesis on "Molecular, structural, and behavioral differences between tremor dominant and non-tremor Parkinson’s disease". Congrats Annelies!
Floortje joins the lab!
We are welcoming another new member to the lab! After doing a bachelor in Health and Life Sciences and a masters in Cognitive Neuroscience, Floortje is now joining the lab for her PhD, supervised by Hanneke. She will be working on Hanneke’s VIDI project: “Getting things done: Unravelling the neurocognitive mechanisms of adaptive decision-making”, using behavioural paradigms, psychopharmacology and potentially fMRI. Check out her personal page for more information!
Hanneke’s research at Radboud Winter School
Hanneke’s research has been turned into a set of teaching materials for primary school students. These materials have now been released at the Radboud Winter school.
Elena joins the lab!
Congratulations to Elena for joining the lab! Elena (28) is a new PhD student, working in both Hanneke den Ouden’s lab and Roshan Cools’ lab. She is part of the Language in Interaction consortium, where she investigates the role of cognitive maps and dopamine in linguistic inference, using a combination of functional MRI and psychopharmacology in healthy human volunteers. For more information, check out her personal page!
New paper in eLife
The study “Catecholaminergic modulation of meta-learning” is now published online in eLife. In this study, we examined how the enhancement of catecholamine function modulates the ability to optimise the learning rate as a function of environmental volatility. The results indicate that blocking the catecholamine transporter with methylphenidate enhanced the ability to adapt the learning rate. Specifically, participants showed higher learning rates in volatile relative to stable phases. The paper can be found here.
New paper by Annelies van Nuland in Human Brain Mapping
Our study “GABAergic changes in the thalamocortical circuit in Parkinson's disease” is now published online in Human Brain Mapping. In this study, we investigated the role of changes in GABA levels in the thalamocortical motor circuit in different clinical phenotypes of Parkinson’s disease. We found that motor cortex GABA levels were negatively correlated with severity of symptoms, both on and off medication. This leads to the conclusion that GABA plays a beneficial role in Parkinson’s disease. The paper is open access and can be downloaded here.
Congrats to Dr. Jennifer Swart!
Jennifer Swart elegantly defended her thesis "To go or not to go" and received her doctoral degree cum laude. Congrats Jennifer!