To what extent do your thoughts and experiences affect your health? What is the impact of the placebo effect on medical treatments, for example for pain and itching? In this project, we will collect stories of people who have experiences with the efficacy of placebo effects, for example as a patient…

The major aim is to determine the role of expectancy mechanisms (e.g., verbal suggestion, classical conditioning, and imagery) in placebo and nocebo effects on different psychical sensations (e.g., pain, itch, and fatigue) and how these expectancy mechanisms can be used to optimize health.

Medicines can work even if they have no active ingredient. The first international scientific conference on placebos will take place in Leiden from 2 to 4 April. Placebo researcher Andrea Evers, who is also chairing the conference, answers some pressing questions.

The major aim is to unravel the central mechanisms of how peoples’ expectancies affect physical symptoms, immune and endocrine responses, and related health outcomes, through the use of pioneering multidisciplinary methods in experimental studies in healthy and clinical populations.

Health psychologist Aleksandrina Skvortsova has made clever use of the Pavlov effect to link the ‘cuddle’ hormone oxytocin with the placebo effect. This effect can alter the level of oxytocin in the body, making it possible for people to reduce the amount of medicine they need while still feeling good.…

If a pill containing no active ingredients still helps, this positive expectation is called a placebo effect. A negative expectation is called a nocebo effect. Both can be produced by verbal suggestions and conditioning. According to Andrea Evers’ research group, combining these is the most promising…

It is becoming increasingly clear that the placebo effect has a great influence on medical treatment. An international, interdisciplinary team of researchers led by Professor of Health Psychology Andrea Evers from Leiden University has now written a first set of guidelines on how to apply the placebo…

Conference

Conference

Lecture, LIBC Sylvius Lecture

Health psychologist Andrea Evers is one of the 19 new members, selected by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), who have been inaugurated on 16 September 2019. The Academy has now about 550 members.

Andrea Evers, Professor of Health Psychology at Leiden University, has won the Stevin Prize – alongside the Spinoza Prize, the highest scientific award in the Netherlands. She is the third social scientist from Leiden in a row to win one of these prizes. ‘Leiden attracts freethinkers.’

Two Leiden researchers of the Institute of Psychology have been given the opportunity to realise their research plans for the coming three years thanks to a Veni grant from the Netherlands organisation for scientific research. Hanneke Hendriks is researcher in the field of Social and organisational…

Positive expectations about a medicine may help it to work more effectively, even if you tell patients about this placebo effect. The reverse, the nocebo effect, works in the same way. Health psychologist Stefanie Meeuwis found evidence for this in various studies. PhD defence 3 June.

Conference

PhD Defence

Andrea Evers is the new Professor of the brand-new unit of Health, Medical and Neuropsychology. She's getting off to a flying start in Leiden with a consolidator grant of the European Research Council (ERC). Her ambition? 'To work together with other disciplines; that way we can arrive at new insigh…

PhD Defence

To relieve a patient's pain, it can be effective to induce expectations. This finding is promising for optimising the effectiveness of treatments, conclude Kaya Peerdeman and colleagues in their article in PAIN.

If you imagine in advance that something is not going to hurt, this could mean you experience less pain. This discovery was made by health psychologist Kaya Peerdeman during her PhD research on the placebo effect. PhD defence 7 February.

Lecture

Arts and Culture, Studium Generale | International Institute for Asian Studies

PhD Defence

Psychological processes have a major effect on the course of a disease and the effects of medical treatment. Researchers in the field of Psychoneurobiology examine the interactions between body and mind. They investigate the effects of stress as well as the effect of placebos and nocebos, which can…

Promotors: C.A.J. Knibbe, Anthonius de Boer, Co-promotor: M.M.J. van der Vorst

The major aim is to unravel the psychoneurobiological factors, such as expectations, sensitization and attentional processes, that affect the experience of itch and pain in acute and chronic state.

This research profile area focuses on all phases of human development, from infancy and childhood to old age. Within this research profile area, psychologists, psychiatrists, specialists in education and child studies, gerontologists, public health and primary care specialists work closely together.

The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) has granted health psychologist Andrea Evers a visiting professorship funding for Luana Colloca. This funding is linked to the KNAW’s Visiting Professors Programme which enables outstanding foreign researchers to spend time working in the Netherlands.…

... which build on self-regulation and stress-regulation theories and considers the modification of cognitions as a mediator of therapeutic change.

Here I propose to study the relationship between autonomic pupil-synchronisation and trust, at the behavioural and neural level, and examine a targeted set of possible contextual moderators.

Does an Emotional Working Memory Training show a beneficial transfer effect on emotion regulation (reappraisal) capacities in patients with Borderline Personality Disorder?

The Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences brings together high-quality research and outstanding teaching.

A new therapy for the serious Graft-versus-Host disease

How can we implement the technique of pharmacological resting-state fMRI to improve the diagnosis of dementia?

Lecture

The research carried out within the unit Health, Medical and Neuropsychology investigates the psychological factors of health and disease, and the development of innovative treatment.

Health is a wonderful gift, both for humans and for society. If we are able to prevent both physical and mental illnesses, we can spare a lot of suffering and fight rising health costs. Social scientists and physicians in Leiden are working closely together to conduct research on the human mental, behavioural…

The factors that dynamically sculpt the inter-regional correlation of brain patterns are poorly understood. Here, we test the hypothesis that they are shaped by the catecholaminergic neuromodulators norepinephrine and dopamine.

Primary Objective: The primary aim of the proposed RCT is to evaluate whether LF-TLP in blended form as an indicated prevention for anxiety complaints is more (cost-) effective than TAU according to the NHG guideline Anxiety. We hypothesize that in comparison to TAU, LF-TLP will result in a significantly…

During the 76th American Psychosomatic Society conference in Louisville, Kentucky from 7-10 march 2018 Aleksandrina Skvortsova was awarded with one of the APS Scholar Awards. Stefanie Meeuwis was honored to present her poster in the APS Citation Poster session

The major aim is to determine the role of stress and stress-related psychophysiological mechanisms (e.g., cognitions, behaviors, and physiological stress responses) of patients with chronic inflammatory conditions and to develop and evaluate stress management interventions to alter the psychophysiological…

The Institute of Psychology is committed to play a prominent role in teaching and research at the national and international level.

The major aim is to unravel the processes underlying psychological factors, such as attention and emotions, influencing the experience of itch and pain in healthy and chronic state.

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.