Affiliation: Radboud University Nijmegen, NL
Keywords: Perception, Action, Control
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Karin Roelofs is Professor of Experimental Psychopathology at the Behavioural Science Institute (BSI) and chair of the PI-group “Affective Neuroscience” at the Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging (DCCN), Radboud University Nijmegen (RU).
Her true passion is to study psychological and neuroendocrine mechanisms underlying social-motivational behavior in healthy individuals and in various forms of psychopathology where social-motivational behavior is disregulated. Her group studies hormone-brain interactions in stress-related disorders (social phobia and PTSD), psychopathy and somatoform disorders (conversion and somatisation), using various neuroscience techniques: fMRI, EEG, and TMS.
Important research questions are: How do people regulate their emotional actions? Can we improve emotion control by administering hormones, such as testosterone or by directly influencing brain activity? Can we predict who will develop psychopathology on the basis of freeze-fight and flight tendencies? Answering these questions will eventually lead to increased insight in affective disorders and promises to advance early detection of symptoms and their treatment.
Karin Roelofs received several grants for her research from the Dutch Brain Foundation (NHS), the European Research Council (ERC-starting grant), the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO: VENI, VIDI, VICI and ASPASIA grants). Furthermore, she is a registered GZ psychologist (BIG) and cognitive behavioral therapist (VCGT).