Elisa's Bio

Helleu! My name is Elisa and I’m in the Cognitive Neuroscience track. Before this Master I did the bachelor Psychobiology at the UvA. My bachelor thesis was called: Role of environmental factors in adult life on maternally induced epigenetic changes of glucocorticoid receptor functions. This is a research proposal for a rat study. In rats is has been shown that the maternal care has a big influence on the development of the rat-pups stress system. Bad maternal care in early life alters the gene expresses ion of some genes in the pups. My proposal was about changes in the environment in the adult life of the rat pup to reverse those gene expression changes . In this way, we might be able to ‘cure’ these neglected pups. My supervisor was Melly Oitzl. She works at both the UvA but most at the University of Leiden. Because I really liked her as my supervisor I’m also going do my first Master internship at her lab in Leiden. This also will be a rat study to see how rats with a genetic predisposition of schizophrenia will develop this disease in reaction to certain (stressful) life events, in early life, puberty and adult life.This research will be an interesting way to combine my two main interests in the Cognitive Neuroscience; development of the brain in early life and pathologies. I guess so far I’ve been orientating myself the most in the animal research direction but I would also like to research both of my interests in humans; ideally by doing research in babies or small children. To get to know this topic a little better I will do the course Developmental Psychopathology this semester.Also I really liked the lectures I had so far about the neuroscience behind sex. The student association of my bachelor, Congo, is organizing a congress with this topic for December the 9 th so that should be fun!