Heightened activation of the striatum that adolescents show in response to reward is often associated with risk-taking and negative health consequences. This article in Nature Communications investigates a potential positive side of this heightened activation. It shows that the activity peak in late…

Fatemeh (Simin) Tabassi Mofrad has recently received a project grant (€ 25,000) from LUF/Gratama Foundation for her ideas in investigating sex-by-genotype interactions in brain functions. She has a multidisciplinary research perspective which enables her to look at research issues from different angles.…

The current study focuses on Walpole’s social network and the language as contained in the letters of the network members.

Mr. Sujadi defended his thesis on 29 June 2017

How do plants lure microscopically small 'support teams' into their roots for protection against diseases? And what functions are activated in the microbes and the plants?

Building a Deep Cross-media Transfer Network to extract visual relations that relieve the problem of insufficient training data for visual tasks.

One of the major limitations in culturing complex tissues or organs is the lack of vascularization in the cultured tissue. Development of a functional capillary bed could overcome this problem.

This project is funded by the Dutch Cancer Society. The project will be part of an ongoing research line aimed at identifying mechanisms of cancer therapy resistance and metastasis. In this project, it will be investigated how the Grainyhead family of transcription factors controls therapy response…

The central aims of this project are to establish the shapes of the various urban hierarchies existing in the provinces of the Roman Empire and (especially) to use the quantitative properties of these hierarchies to shed new light on levels of economic integration.

Miranda Smit, Ineke van der Ham and colleagues have published a paper in Experimental Brain Research, entitled: Body ownership and the absence of touch: Approaching the rubber hand in- and outside peri-hand space.

Questionnaires or concentration tasks can be used to screen for anxiety, but so too can EEG recordings – at least indirectly. The frequent mind wandering of anxious people can also be seen on MRI scans. These are just some of the findings of clinical neuropsychologist Dana van Son. PhD defence on 24…

There is no heritage without emotional sharing and clashing. This article explores the involvement of divergent emotions in heritage making by discussing the debate series of Imagine IC and the Reinwardt Academy and zooming in on the commemoration of slavery and imagery of ‘Black Pete’ in the Netherlands.…

Renate Dekker defended her thesis on 7 November 2017.

TRANSAUTOPHAGY is a European COST action to promote multidisciplinary research on autophagy and translation of knowledge to applications.

How can we culture an artificial vascular network to support tissue development ex vivo?

This thesis describes a study from both a theoreticaL and an experimental point of view.

Sasha Goldstein defended her thesis on 10 January 2019

Beyond Empires explores the complexity of empire building from the point of view of self-organized networks, rather than from the point of view of the central state.

Brain scanners have radically changed neurolinguistics. They are increasing our understanding of how the brain processes language. Professor Niels Schiller has produced a standard work on this.

The principle aim of the project is to study the genesis and the quantitative properties of the Early Roman urban network of the Balkan and the Danube provinces.

How was anti-communism organized in the West? New volume edited by Giles Scott-Smith, Luc van Dongen and Stephanie Roulin on the aims, arguments and associations of a range of transnational anti-communist activists during the Cold War.

May 12 is Mother's Day in many countries. Becoming a mother is no mean feat: brain scientist Elseline Hoekzema has shown that a woman's brain changes drastically during pregnancy. She explained how in TV show De Kennis van Nu.

Leiden University will appoint Dr Anne-Laura van Harmelen as Professor of Brain, Security and Resilience at the Institute of Education and Child Studies with effect from 1 September 2020. She will focus on the brain in relation to the development of transgressive behaviour and its prevention and tre…

Analysis of neuroimaging data requires multiple steps where statistics play a crucial role. The MRI methods research group develops new statistical methods that are accurate, transparent and easy to use.

Jifeng Liu defended his thesis on 2 February 2017

NETWORKS, a new consortium of 11 researchers from the University of Amsterdam, Technical University Eindhoven, Leiden University and CWI aims to address the pressing challenges posed by large-scale networks using stochastics and algorithms.

The Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition (LIBC) is concentrating increasingly on research into the role of the brain in language development. The institute has now set up the LIBC Language website that brings together all the information on this research.

The Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition is a network focusing on science valorisation and outreach, stimulating interdisciplinary exchange of knowledge and expertise on topics related to brain and cognition. Its research members come from a broad and diverse spectrum of specialized academic fields…

With the help of software that mimics a human brain, ESA’s Gaia satellite spotted six stars zipping at high speed from the centre of our Galaxy to its outskirts. This could provide key information about some of the most obscure regions of the Milky Way.

Physicists Lucia Bossoni and Martina Huber have been awarded an NWA Ideeëngenerator-grant for research into iron nanoparticles in the brain. These nanoparticles may be linked to air pollution and Alzheimer's disease.

Description of The Regional Network on the Synergy between the Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.

Dutch newspaper NRC contacted four Dutch universities regarding the brain drain in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that is going on in the Netherlands.

The way in which written language is processed in the brain is a hot topic in cognitive research. Cognitive psychologist Rinus Verdonschot studied a Japanese script in which a single character can have up to three possible pronunciations. He discovered that all three are simultaneously activated in…

Parents appear to be extremely sensitive to feedback they receive about their child. Just how sensitive depends on the (‘rose-tinted’) glasses through which they look at their child. All this can be seen in the brain. Neuroscientist Lisanne van Houtum and her Leiden colleagues published on this issue…

The Pilgrims to America exhibition at Museum De Lakenhal inspires reflection. How far do you go in the quest for freedom? It focuses on the Pilgrims’ relationship with the University and which knowledge they took with them from Leiden.

Book by Soledad Valdivia Rivera

ACPA’s PhD candidate and composer/flutist Ned McGowan will give a lecture at Café Chercher on March 27 called Speed in Music, Brain and Body.

The STW project Energy Efficient Computer-Brain Interaction (principal investigator for LIACS: dr. T.P. Stefanov) has been granted. Funding for LIACS: 1 PhD student + travel/equipment budget, project duration: 4 years.

Within 20 years, intelligent machines will play a major role in society. ‘Selfdriving cars will be 90% safer than human-driven cars and will change transportation globally,’ says artificial intelligence scientist Bart Selman of Cornell University. He gave the first Ada Lovelace lecture of the Leiden…

During adolescence, some young people have stable best-friend relationships, while others change best friends frequently. Developmental psychologist Lisa Schreuders has studied the brains of young adolescents: ‘It seems that friendships in your early years can have consequences for your friendships…

Since the emergence of humankind people have maintained social contacts and traveled widely, establishing interaction networks in which goods are traded and ideas are transmitted, increasingly on a global scale.

Max van Duijn, Assistant Professor at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS), has been awarded a Veni grant for his research into children's empathy. The ability to empathise can be studied by telling stories. This process, known as 'Theory of Mind' or ‘mindreading’, can provide important…

Just imagine: you see someone being treated unfairly. Do you find it more rewarding to help the victim or punish the perpetrator? Research by Leiden psychologist Mirre Stallen indicates that punishing is more rewarding. Publication in JNeurosci.

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