Optimization, mechanisms of action and predictors of the outcome of light therapy in depression: A multicenter randomized trial

What are the circadian disturbances underlying depression vulnerability? How are they related to mood, cognition and sleep ?

Our mission is to improve the description, prediction, understanding and the prevention and treatment of mood disorders, including unipolar and bipolar depression, as well as suicidal thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. To tackle this ambitious mission, we focus on several research streams.

The Leiden Index of Depression Sensitivity (LEIDS) measures cognitive reactivity (CR) to sadness, an aspect of cognitive vulnerability to depression, conceptually similar to rumination.

We found that, next to the effectiveness of the intervention, it’s also very likely that the intervention is cost-effective compared to attention only.

How do genetic and environmental factors make us vulnerable to depression?

To investigate the effectiveness of an online self-help programme for people with HIV and depressive symptoms.

What are the social and neural mechanisms that contribute to fluctuations in self-esteem in healthy adolescents and adolescents with depression?

My ERC Starting Grant, funded with €1.5 million for 5 years as part of the Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, is focused on building the early warning system WARN-D to reliably forecast depression in young adults before it occurs. Why depression, and why prediction?

Depression has traditionally been linked to increased inflammation. Innovative research by psychologist Eiko Fried refutes this popular assumption. He shows that specific depression symptoms such as sleeping problems explain this relationship. Publication in Psychological Medicine .

What is the effectiveness of (booklet or online) self-help programmes for people with somatic stressors and depressive symptoms? What works best for whom? How to improve motivation and adherence?

Some people are more sensitive to depression than others. But why is that the case? Clinical psychologist Niki Antypa studied how vulnerability to depression is influenced by cognition. She also found a first careful indication that a treatment with omega-3 fatty acids might provide a solution.

I want to understand the overlap between physical health, mental health, and healthy aging and whether/how stress (behaviorally and biologically) may tie these concepts together.

PhD defence

What role do parent-child interactions play in the development, maintenance and treatment of depression in young people?

The aim of this project is to investigate the (cost)effectiveness of two innovative forms of trauma-focused therapy for patients with childhood abuse related PTSD. The ultimate goal is to improve quality of care and contribute to treatment innovation for this severely ill target population.

People already diagnosed with a mental disorder before the COVID-19 pandemic did not show a disproportionate increase in symptoms afterwards. This is one result from the first systematic review of longitudinal studies following their study population from before to during the first eighteen months of…

Welcome to the Social Anxiety and Specific Phobia (SASP) Research Group!

From August 14-18 the UvA and VU organise a Summer School in Classics.

From 1 August 2020, smoking on the premises of Leiden University will be prohibited. Dutch law obliges institutions of higher education to enforce a full smoking ban on their premises as of that date.

The project has been done in the Quantum Matter Optics group under the supervision of Dr. Wolfgang Löffler and Prof.dr. Carlo Beenakker. The title of the presentation is:

The project has been done in the Dirk Bouwmeester Lab under the supervision of Dr. Wolfgang Loeffler, Dr. Michiel de Dood and Frank Buters. The title of the presentation is:“A membrane-in-the-middle device for optomechanics.

The project has been done in the Quantum Matter Optics under the supervision of Dr.ir. Sense Jan van der Molen and Dr. Johannes Jobst. The title of the presentation is:

Clinical psychology is a discipline concerned with the application of psychological science to the assessment and treatment of mental disorders.

People who have taken antibiotics in the past three months pay more attention to negative facial expressions, according to research by postdoc Katerina Johnson and assistant professor Laura Steenbergen. This may explain how antibiotics increase the risk of developing depression.

The aim of our research program is to better understand the etiology and course of mood, anxiety and stress-related disorders, such as depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We investigate both the transdiagnostic mechanisms underlying these disorders and work on improving the treatments…

Predictors of work functioning in persons with multiple sclerosis

Bernet Elzinga (Clinical Psychology) is one of the seven scientists from the Leiden University who has received a Vici grant of 1.5 million euros from NWO. Vici is one of the largest grants for individual scientists in the Netherlands. The funding will enable her to do research for the next five years…

Leiden researchers are helping develop safe COVID-19 vaccines.

Imagine how much time, money and discomfort it would save: a personalised treatment for each individual patient. Precision medicine like this is coming ever closer, thanks in part to Elise Dusseldorp’s algorithms. They retrieve a wealth of information from research data.

In August 2019, Debating Public Diplomacy: Now and Next, edited by Jan Melissen and Jian Wang, is out as a paperback issue. There is a special discount available for a limited time only.

Primary Objective: The primary aim of the proposed RCT is to evaluate whether LF-TLP in blended form as an indicated prevention for anxiety complaints is more (cost-) effective than TAU according to the NHG guideline Anxiety. We hypothesize that in comparison to TAU, LF-TLP will result in a significantly…

CERQ is a questionnaire measuring cognitive coping strategies developed by Dr. Nadia Garnefski and Dr. Vivian Kraaij.

In a longitudinal study, Eichengreen and colleagues explored how the certain aspects of emotional intelligence impact the development of adolescents’ mental health, thus identifying potential warning signs and targets for intervention programs. Despite a higher risk for mental health issues and lesser…