Luca Abel at Radboud University Nijmegen

In September 2024, I had the opportunity to visit the Experimental Psychopathology and Affective Neuroscience group at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen. The research of this group is closely aligned to the research done in the subproject D03 (Contactless detection of stress, its determinants and consequences). Karin Roloefs, the chair of this group, is the leading researcher in defensive freezing responses, which characterized by a cessation of body motion and bradycardia. These freezing responses showed to be a promising candidate to for contactless stress detection.

The Donders Institute is a center focusing on cognitive neuroscience and neuroneuroimaging techniques such as MEG, EEG and fMRI. During my stay, I got an insight into their current study, investigating whether transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) can improve exposure therapy for the treatment of social anxiety disorder. Additionally, we had a mutual exchange on how to measure the freezing response continuously without a fixed stimulus. Futhermore, we discussed, how my expertise in data analytics and machine learning could help them in their projects. These discussions could be the foundation of future collaborations.