Frank hezemans | Post doc
Frank studies the neurocognitive mechanisms of motivational control of human behaviour. He has a broad background in cognitive psychology, with a recent focus on formal models of perception, learning, and decision-making. He completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in psychology and cognitive neuroscience at Leiden University, with additional coursework in philosophy. As part of his master’s, Frank completed a research internship in Trevor Robbins’ lab at the University of Cambridge, where he studied the effects of experimentally-induced acute anxiety on working memory and goal-directed planning. He remained at the University of Cambridge to pursue a PhD under the supervision of James Rowe, focusing on the cognitive mechanisms of disorders of motivation, such as apathy and impulsivity. Since then, Frank has joined Roshan Cools’ lab at the Donders Institute, to study the dynamic adjustment of motivational control by dopamine and noradrenaline. Specifically, he is currently analysing an extensive database on dopaminergic drug effects, including dopamine PET, pharmacological task-related fMRI, behavioural experiments, and physiological and psychological reports. The aim is to integrate these variables through computational modelling and machine learning techniques, to better understand - and ultimately, predict - the benefit of dopaminergic drug treatment.