Faculty member

Research Interests

Research in the Adaptive Memory Group seeks to understand the neural and cognitive mechanisms that operate on our memories of the past to help us live in the future. We are particularly interested in the contributions of the prefrontal cortex and its interactions with the hippocampus.

Available PhD projects

We currently focus on three lines of research. First, we investigate how people suppress unwanted memories. By this, we study a process that may be deficient in individuals suffering from intrusive thoughts. Second, we investigate how people imagine possible future episodes. We examine how such episodic simulations are constructed based on recombinations of disparate memories, and how they motivate future-oriented decisions. Third, we are interested in the mnemonic functions supported by the medial and lateral prefrontal cortex and its interactions with the hippocampus. All of these lines of inquiry offer exciting opportunities for prospective PhD projects.