uu77

Donders Research Stimulation Fund initiatives

Focus Groups (2025):

• Baby & Child Research Center (Sabine Hunnius)
• Computational Modeling Focus Group (Luke Miller)
• Neuro-AI Focus Group (Floris de Lange)
• The Radboud Ecological Momentary Assessment Center (Rogier Kievit)
• Conversation Focus Group (Sara Bögels)
• Biofeedback and Neurofeedback Community Nijmegen (BNCNijmegen) (Erno Hermans)
• Parkinson's Disease & Movement Disorders (Rick Helmich)
• Neurodiversity and Mental Health ()
• Neural mechanisms of perception (Timo van Kerkoerle)
• Multidisciplinary Decision-Making (Alan Sanfey)
• Computational NeuroPsychiatry (Hanneke den Ouden)
• Brain Clearing Technologies group ()
• Molecular and Cellular Neurobiology Nijmegen Seminar Series (Anne-Sophie Hafner)

Cross Centre Collaborations (2025):

• From high-content to high-context (Clyde Francks): Illuminating the brain's extracellular matrix from complementary angles
• envisionBOXBABY (Wim Pouw): Building Collaborative Toolkits for Language Communication, and Action-Perception Dynamics Research in Human Infants
• Offline replay of memory traces of creative narrative construction (Francesco Battaglia)
• Language meets perception (Marius Peelen): The role of language-mediated imagery in perceptual biases
• Wired for Growth (Caroline Rowland): Imaging the Developing Brain 

Focus Groups (2024):

• Perception Focus Group (Timo van Kerkoerle): We organize debates on hot topics in cognitive & systems neuroscience of perception, chaired by different PIs from the Donders Institute. The goal is to overcome the often implicit differences in perspectives and terminology, due to the use of different experimental methods (commonly non-invasive recording techniques in human versus invasive techniques in animal models).
• Molecular and Cellular Neurobiology Nijmegen Seminar Series (Anne-Sophie Hafner): Our seminar series brings together twelve research groups from DCN and DCMN once a month. It is followed by a lunch enabling scientific interactions between cellular and molecular researchers at all career levels promoting inter-center collaborations.
• Ear and Hearing Focus Group (cris.lanting [at] radboudumc.nl (Cris Lanting)): bridges fundamental research and clinical challenges in hearing care, fostering collaboration between Biophysics and ENT experts. Meetings every eight weeks feature presentations and discussions to advance diagnostics and treatments.
• Computational NeuroPsychiatry (Hanneke den Ouden): The aim of this focus group is to provide a platform to bring together computational neuropsychiatry research groups. Seminars will be organised in June, September, and November.
• Multidisciplinary Decision-Making (Alan Sanfey): This focus group provides an opportunity for researchers to both share their decision science work as well as explore and develop potential collaborations. The four meetings will be scheduled for September, October, November, and December.

Cross Centre Collaborations (2024):

• REMAC (Janna Vrijsen): REMAC brings together researchers from across the Radboud campus (Donders Institute, Radboudumc, and uu77) working on intensive longitudinal data. REMAC stimulates interaction and collaboration across Radboud campus to ensure optimal study design, skill sharing, new discoveries, data processing, item selection, advanced analysis and best (open) science practices. 
• Donders Sleep Retreat (Lisa Genzel): Donders researchers from different lab interested in the common topic of sleep, meet up to discuss collaborations, methods and to develop translational projects crossing rodent and human sleep research. 
• Zero-shot word learning in children (Floris de Lange): Children begin acquiring their first 50 words gradually over several months. However, after this initial slow growth period, there appears to be a vocabulary spurt (McMurray, 2007) with a rapid growth in productive vocabulary. This collaboration grant contributes to the empirical question as to how we can explain this massive increase in children’s vocabulary. 
• Social emotion behavior during adolescence, steriod hormones and stress (Carolina de Weerth): Longitudinal investigation of risk factors, as well as resilience against, the development of stress-related symtomatology from before birth till age 18 years in the BIBO study (Basal Influences on the Baby’s Development). Data include hair steroids and fMRI data collected in early and late adolescence.
• Structural Equation Modelling applied to quantitative imaging derived biomarkers (QIDB) on Parkinson: The MR Structural Quantitative Imaging group (José Marques), the System Neurology group (Rick Helmich), and the Developmental Neuroscience group (Rogier Kievit) join forces to use qMRI data as an input to latent profile analysis and structural equation modelling to study the evolution of Parkinsonism in a large longitudinal dataset of Parkinson patients.
• Auditory Profiling: A Cross-Center Approach to Understanding and Addressing Hearing Loss (): aims to address the global health challenge of hearing loss by enhancing diagnostic and intervention strategies through advanced auditory profiling.
• Adrenergic control over memory detailedness at the synaptic and circuit level (Benno Roozendaal): pioneers a new collaboration between DCMN and DCN to reveal the synaptic and cellular mechanisms underlying stress neuromodulators' control over learning and memory processes. 
• Development of Digital Biomarkers for Parkinson's Disease Through Cross-Center Collaboration (Yağmur Güçlütürk): to advance the development of digital biomarkers for the assessment of Parkinson's Disease based on video recordings, through a focused collaboration between the Donders Centre for Medical Neuroscience (DCMN) and the Donders Center for Cognition (DCC). 
• Tph2-deficiency implications in neurodevelopment: the role of the microbiome (Sharon Kolk): this project may deliver insights on critical windows of intervention and consequently new opportunities to prevent and/or treat neuropsychiatric disorders in the future.

Donders challenges (2023):

To stimulate and support cooperation between our researchers, external researchers and partners in society, we funded six Donders Challenges:

• Neuromorphic Computing: For better understanding of natural intelligence but also paves the way for more capable and efficient AI systems (2025)
• : A platform where people can ask us what they want to know about the brain (2023).
• Donders decision app: Because people are often unaware of internal and external factors that influence their choices (2023).
• Toolkit on sensitivity at the workplace: Developing a toolkit on sensitivity to the environment at the workplace (2023).
• Keeping balance: We will make our research bicycle simulator available to clinical partners within this challenge (2023).
• The immune system in psychiatry: With combined expertise across neuroscience, psychiatry, genetics, and endocrinology (2023).
• A dive into brain diversity: How common brain spaces can break the silos in neuroscience (2023).