Prof. K. Roelofs (Karin)

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). 

She studies psychological and neuroendocrine mechanisms underlying social-motivational behavior in healthy individuals and in patients with stress-related and social-motivational disorders, such as social anxiety and aggression. She uses various brain imaging (fMRI, MEG) techniques, combined with neural stimulation (TMS, tACS) or pharmacological interventions (steroid hormones) during emotion control and decision making tasks. In addition, she studies the influence of stress on the (neural) development of emotion control in longitudinal samples, including the Nijmegen Longitudinal Study and a large police cohort. 

Important research questions are: How do people regulate their emotional actions? Can we improve emotion control by administering hormones, by directly influencing brain activity or by real time biofeedback? Can we predict who will develop psychopathology on the basis of freeze and fight-or-flight tendencies in longitudinal studies? Answering these questions will eventually lead to increased insight in affective disorders and promote their early detection and treatment. 

Karin Roelofs received several European grants for her research (an ERC-starting, ERC-consolidator and several collaborative Fp7 and Horizon2020 grants). In addition, she received several national grants from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO: VENI, VIDI, VICI and Brain & Cognition grants). Furthermore, she is a registered GZ psychologist (BIG) and cognitive behavioral therapist (VCGT).

• Perception, Action and Decision-making

• Affective Neuroscience