Dr NICOLA VAN RIJSBERGEN

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    PhD projects

    What is like to not know the answer to the question 'how do you feel?' I'm currently interested in Emotion blindness (Alexithymia), and the recognition of emotional states in the self and others. Also, what does it feel like to get older? Are emotions differently felt, and differently processed in the brains of older age people? I'm interested in connecting changes with age in neural activity as measured by something like EEG, and changes in subjective experience.

    I have an ongoing examining brain signals in younger and older people with Alexithymia (with EEG). This is also connected with a public engagement project with Dr DorothyTse
    and our local u3a. Please see https://ageingbetter.wixsite.com/ageing-better-with-a
    for details. My part of the project is about understanding and preserving emotional health. It is also connected to the ongoing work of Eleanor Clarke, and Dr Felicity Wolohan on loneliness. Please contact me for more details, and how you might get involved with this project, as either graduate student, undergraduate student intern, or as a participant.

    Methods: EEG, eyetracking, Biopac (heartrate, GSR); interested in real time two person interaction and maybe fNIRS/EEG. Although my bias is towards quantitative neuroscience, I recently became convinced of the need for mixed approaches in research on neurodiverse conditions like alexithymia, and of the importance of taking to account lived, as well as laboratory experience.




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    20072022

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    Biography

    I studied  Philosophy as an undergraduate at Cambridge, then completed an Msc in Cognitive Science at Edinburgh. I stayed on there to complete a PhD  in what was then called ' Adaptive and Neural Computation, with Prof David Willshaw. I  then moved to Trieste, and worked on a variety of research projects in SISSA, before a long stint in the Psychology Department in Glasgow. My degree in Philosophy left me wanting to  understand how thinking and feeling could actually happen in brain structures, and I'm still wondering. 

     

    Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

    In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

    • SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being

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