Behavioural & Translational Neuroscience

Our section examines cognitive and motivational processes underlying psychiatric disorders such as addictive behaviour and ADHD, employing translational models of animal behaviour. Currently, the pharmacology and neurobiology of impulsivity and drug seeking behaviour and their interrelationship have our particular attention. This research line is embedded in the Amsterdam Neuroscience research program Compulsivity, Impulsivity, and Attention. Through several collaborations with clinical and preclinical partners within this program and beyond we are able to translate our animal behavioural data to a clinical level, including genetic and brain imaging studies in humans, and to a more fundamental level, i.e. the identification of the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying maladaptive cognitive and motivational functioning. In 2020, we started MeMo-lab, a human intervention lab aimed at destabilizing pathogenic memories, with a focus on smoking memories.