Here you can find a selection of news and events from our research group. If you want to stay updated about the most recent developments, you can follow us on Twitter.
September
Amber Koert started her PhD position on exercise and mental health; ‘Working out urban stress’, with Joram Mul, Anouk Schrantee (Amsterdam UMC), Claudi Bockting (Amsterdam UMC) and Paul Lucassen on a PhD grant from Urban Mental Health.
Xiaoyi Feng received a 4 years scholarship (Guangzhou Elites Scholarship Council) to work on ‘Social transmission of stress after early life adversity’ with Harm Krugers.
August
Hannah Juncker started as a PhD candidate at the SILS supervised by Aniko Korosi and Hans Van Goudoever, and will be working on the Amsterdam Moedermilk study.
July
Paul Lucassen, together with Yvonne Nolan from Cork University, Ireland, received a grant from Science Foundation Ireland on; ’The interplay between neuroinflammation, exercise, neurogenesis and cognition during middle age.'
April
Vanessa van Ast (FMG), Harm Krugers, and Joram Mul received an ABC Grant on Fighting Fear generalization with exercise.
March
On 12 March, as one of the last defences taking place at UvA prior to the corona lockdown, Livia Clemente Motta Teixeira made her longstanding dream come true and succesfully defended her thesis; 'Enduring neural and behavioral effects of early life adversity: consequences of the absence of maternal melatonin and of neonatal hypoxia’.
Many thanks to Prof. Kessels for stepping in as chair at the last moment and for the opponents for coming over in these demanding times. Congrats to first promotor Aniko Korosi and well done, Livia!
Promotors; Dr Aniko Korosi and Prof. Jackson Cionni Bittencourt (Brazil), copromotors; Prof Paul J Lucassen, Prof José Cipolla Neto (Brazil).
February
Oihane Abiega Etxabe started a 3-year guest postdoc position in our group with Carlos Fitzsimons
January
Dr Joram Mul is appointed full-time per January 1st as assistant professor at the UvA working on adaptations in the brain underlying the effects of physical (in)activity on cognition and stress-related behavior.
December
Joram Mul received a grant from the J.L. Dobberke foundation to work on “Running alone or together – Designing a cage system to study the impact of social housing conditions on mouse running behavior and brain function”.
September
Joram Mul together with Sabine Spijker, Aniko Korosi and Paul Lucassen received a grant from Amsterdam Neuroscience on “Working Out the Antidepressant Effects of Exercise; Unbiased transcriptomic and proteomic screens to identify molecular mechanisms that mediate the antidepressant action of exercise training and environmental enrichment in validated murine models of depression/PTSD”.
October
Harm Krugers and Richard Ridderinkhof (FMG) received an UMH grant on: Active and Healthy Aging: Promoting Preventive Interventions based on Resilience Network Analysis
November
Jeniffer Sanguino Gomez started a 2 year guest PhD position with Harm Krugers on ‘Unraveling fear memory engram after early life adversity’ (Fundacion Mutua Madrilena).
On 7 November 2019, Maralinde Abbink successfully defended her thesis, entitled ‘Programming of the brain by early-life stress. The impact of nutritional interventions and later life challenges.’ Thanks to our external opponent Dr Yvonne Nolan from Cork. Promotors; Aniko Korosi and Paul Lucassen, with co-promotor Eva Naninck. Well done and congratulations, Dr Mara!
July
Congrats to our former PhD student Sylvie Lesuis on receiving a Rubicon 2019 grant from NWO, allowing her to work on stress and fear with Sheena Josselyn in Canada. For more information check the news article.
June
Joram Mul is appointed part-time per June 1st as assistant professor at the UvA working on adaptations in the brain underlying the effects of physical (in)activity on cognition and stress-related behavior.
February
On February 7, SILS organized an international 'SILS-CNS 2.0' Neuroscience symposium; aside from presentations by the 4 neuroscience groups, 4 world-class speakers presented their work; Gabriel Santpere from Yale, Tracy Bale from University of Maryland, Baltimore, Mathew Diamond from SISSA, Trieste and Keynote Speaker Robert Malinow.
January
On 24 January Sylvie Lesuis defended her thesis on ‘Stress and Memory in Health and Disease; Impact on Alzheimer’s disease and Memory mechanisms’.
Based on the content and her defense itself, the committee together with several external experts, evaluated her performance as excellent and awarded her PhD with the distinction ‘CUM LAUDE’; congrats Sylvie; very well done! Promotors; Harm Krugers and Paul Lucassen.”
November
On 23 November, Juan Zhao successfully defended her PhD thesis on; "Changes in the GABA and Glutamatergic system in the prefrontal cortex in relation to depression and suicide". Promotors; Prof.Dr. PJ Lucassen, Prof.Dr. DF Swaab and copromotor Prof. dr. H.J. Kessels.
Kitty Reemst, PhD candidate with Aniko Korosi, was awarded the posterprize on the ECNP 2018 congress
June
On 20 June, Lana Beex successfully defended her thesis; ‘Reactive gliosis at the tripartite synapse; Functional characterisation of astrocytes in a model of Alzheimer’s disease’. Promotors; prof.dr. E.M. Hol and prof. dr. PJ Lucassen.
March
On 23 March, Lianne Hoeijmakers did a great job in successfully defending her PhD thesis; 'Consequences of early-life stress for microglia throughout life; relevance for the hippocampus in aging and Alzheimer’s disease’. International opponent was Dr Staci Bilbo (Harvard Medical School, USA). Co-promotor; Dr A. Korosi, Promotor; Prof. Dr. Paul J.Lucassen
On 22 March, Aniko Korosi organized the BrainSINposium with international top researchers (Sofie Laye, Staci Bilbo ao) on crosstalk of Stress, Inflammation and Nutrition for which she received funding from Amsterdam Brain and Cognition and NWO to support its organization
On 20 March, Kit-Yi Yam successfully defended her PhD thesis entitled: ‘Programming of the brain by metabolic and nutritional factors after early-life stress’.Co-promotor: Dr. A.Korosi. Promotor: Prof.Dr. PJ Lucassen.