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Cognitive Affective Research Lab (CAR-lab)

Cognitive Affective Research Lab (CAR-lab)

 Making the difference for people with Mental Health Disorders. Group
Making the difference for people with Mental Health Disorders.
Our current members
We are curious about why some people have good mental health and others have mental health problems, even under seemingly similar circumstances. We wish to learn what role of the brain and its functioning is in mental health. So we can understand and treat mental health problems better.

Many individuals will experience mental health problems at some stage in their lives. For about half of the people, this will only occur for one period of time. For others, this first occurrence of mental health problems is the start of enduring and recurrent suffering, which has a severe impact on daily life functioning, including studying, working and taking care of your family. We focus on aspects of mental health problems that have been linked to enduring and recurring suffering.

Our main research interest concerns the following:

  • The role of emotion regulation in recurrence of depression
  • The working mechanisms of effective non-pharmacological treatments, including psychotherapy, for lowering the risk for enduring and recurring mental health problems
  • The role of rewards and personal value in cognitive control problems in people with recurrent depression
  • The neurocognitive underpinnings of suicidal thoughts and attempts
  • The influence of early life maltreatment on the brain and risk for mental health problems.
Relevance

A large impact on mental health and healthy ageing

We focus on disturbances of mood & affect that have a major impact on daily life functioning and quality of life.

  • Symptom dimensions that have a negative impact on the course of mental health problems
  • Neurocognitive underpinnings of mental health problems
  • Working mechanisms of therapeutic interventions that improve the long term course of mental health problems

Our group focuses on different projects:

  • Neurocognitive working mechanisms of preventing relapse in depression (NEWPRIDE study)
  • Neural correlates of suicidal behavior: a longitudinal study (HOPES study)
  • The role of spontaneous thought processes in the vulnerability for depression: An experimental psychological and (neuro)cognitive approach in clinical and at risk populations (MINDCOG study)
  • Improving daily life functioning following recovery from major depressive disorder: the role of cognitive control and reward processing (GA-GOED!-studie)
  • NESDA Neuroimaging study
  • Learning to preserve: complex skill training as a cognitive vaccine to prevent old-age disorders?

Learn more about the projects

Contact

Bote Smid
E-mail: [email protected]

Center for Clinical Neuroscience and Cognition
University Medical Center Groningen
Internal postcode FA32
PO BOX 30.001
9700 RB Groningen
The Netherlands

Visiting address

Center for Clinical Neuroscience and Cognition
University Medical Center Groningen
Triade building, entrance 24
9700 RB Groningen
The Netherlands