Aims and approaches

What?

Our basic aim is to gain a deeper understanding of the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying affective disorders and stress regulation. We integrate findings from clinical, behavioural, cognitive and neurobiological research.

 
We aim to:

  • Improve our understanding of the working mechanisms of mood and anxiety disorders
  • Investigate psychophysiological stress dynamics
  • Identify individual differences in information processing styles
  • Investigate vulnerability and resilience factors for affective disorders in a life-span perspective
  • Develop neurocognitive interventions to increase stress resilience, based on new strategies of emotion regulation and on a combination of neurostimulation and cognitive training
  • Stimulate translational research to improve prevention for stress related disorders, in a transdiagnostic perspective 


How?

  • Experimental psychology paradigms
  • Eye-tracking
  • Neuroimaging techniques (e.g. fMRI, PET)
  • Psychophysiological indeces (heart rate variability, pupillometry, skin conductance, saliva cortisol)
  • Tasks to index implicit processes
  • Neurostimulation (rTMS, iTBS, tDCS)
  • Experience Sampling Methods / Cognitive training apps