Luisa Prochazkova finished her Ph.D. at the Cognitive Psychology Unit, Leiden University under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Bernhard Hommel and Dr. Roberta Sellaro. In her PhD project, funded by a European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator grant, she worked on the questions of how cognitive control affects the interplay between so-called intentional and automatic processes. In particular, she investigates how the ability to maintain behavioural goals is dictated by current metacontrol state bias and how is such bias induced. To this end, Luisa studies the effect of drugs (psychedelics/microdosing), meditation, changes in the autonomic nervous system and reward processing on the metacontrol policies. Furthermore, Luisa is interested in improving existing VR-mindfulness games by implementing biofeedback to monitor and aid emotional responses and psychophysiological states during training.

CIPER-SR researcher, Jorge Encantado Ph.D., presented in the CIPER Researchers' weekly meeting "An Introduction to Systematic Reviews". The presentation's goal was to provide students and researchers alike the fundamental knowledge regarding the procedures of a Systematic Review, the most critical steps, international guidelines, and some pitfalls that may occur during this long-term endeavour. A slide deck is available HERE.

Psychologist Philipp Kadel, from the University of Mannheim, presented at CIPER Researchers' weekly meeting, a talk titled “The Planet's Health is Our Health - Psychological Perspectives on One-Health and Its Promotion”. It described the relevance of studying sustainable behaviours both for individual and environmental benefit (slide deck is available HERE). Philipp is an active member of the Psychology Coalition at the United Nations and the UN committee of the European Health Psychology Society (EHPS).

Talea Cornelius is a health psychologist and Assistant Professor of Medical Sciences at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Her research situates mental health and health behaviors within a social context. In particular, she explores how an acute medical event, such as an acute coronary syndrome or a stroke, impacts patients and partners alike, and how partners can both facilitate and undermine patient well-being. Dr. Cornelius is also exploring novel applications of dyadic analysis to gain insight into interdependent, individual-level processes.

The association of physical activity and physical fitness with mental health, with an emphasis on determinants and mechanisms underlying depressive symptomatology

Michiel van Elk completed his PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience at the Donders Institute in Nijmegen (cum laude). He worked as a visiting researcher at the University of California Santa Barbara (2010), as a Marie Curie post-dotoral fellow at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland (2010-2012), as a Fulbright Scholar at Stanford University (2017), as a Research Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies (NIAS) in Amsterdam (2019-2010) and as Assistant Professor at the University of Amsterdam (2013-2020). Since 2020 Michiel is affiliated as Associate Professor to the University of Leiden and as an affiliate researcher at VU University. Supported by grants from the Templeton Foundation, NWO and the BIAL Foundation he supervises the PRSM Lab, which focuses on the study of Psychedelic, Religious, Spiritual and Mystical Experiences.  By using a variety of different techniques, including self-report measures, interviews, expectancy manipulations, neuroimaging tools, psychophysiological techniques and pharmacological challenges the aim of the lab is to understand how PRSM experiences come about, the effects they have on our behavior and well-being and the philosophical implications of PRSM experiences for our views on the self and reality.

The research protocol article for the NoHow project, first-authored by Marta Marques, has been published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research. JMIR the leading digital health journal in quality / visibility (IF 5.43), ranking Q1 in the medical informatics category. It is also the largest journal in the field. https://www.jmir.org/2021/12/e25305