News CoRPS
April 2012
Secondary school pupils visit CoRPS
On 27 March 2012 ten secondary school pupils of the Corderius College (Amersfoort) accompanied by two of their teachers visited CoRPS to get acquainted with various aspects of psychology research. The pupils, in their fourth year of pre-university education (high school), previously attended a masterclass on psychology as part of their curriculum and were hence interested to learn more about research in psychology. They were offered a full day program for their visit, including a workshop on mindfulness, given by Ivan Nyklicek PhD and an interactive workshop on the effects of stress on blood pressure and heart beat by Loes Smeijers MSc and Helma de Morree PhD. In the afternoon they were given the opportunity to get acquainted with the WEBCARE study and participated in the internet course about anxiety and stress reduction for patients with an ICD (implantable cardiovascular device). The last part of the program was a visit to the Babylab where one of the pupils volunteered in measuring her brain activity. The pupils showed a lot of interest in the topics presented and were very enthusiastic about the program offered.
April 2012
Floortje Mols and Kim Nicolaije to give oral presentations at 6th Biennal Cancer Survivorship Research Conference, Washington
Both Floortje Mols PhD and Kim Nicolaije MSc have been selected to give an oral presentation at the 6th Biennal Cancer Survivorship Research Conference in Washington. Floortje will present her research about depression as a risk factor for mortality after cancer and Kim will present the first results of the ROGYCare trial on the effect of Survivorship Care Plans for cancer patients. The organization normally only accepts posters and invitations to give an oral presentation are quite exceptional. It is therefore an honor that both Floortje and Kim have been selected to present their research orally; also their travel, accommodation and congress expenses are fully reimbursed by the Conference organization.
More information
April 2012
Grant for Floortje Mols
Floortje Mols PhD acquired a Pink Ribbon subsidy of 69.500 euro for the project 'Supporting breast cancer patients in coping with chemotherapy-induced hair loss and treatment decisions regarding scalp cooling'. This project will be conducted at the Comprehensive Cancer Centre South (IKZ).
More information
April 2012
Nikki Damen MSc and Madelein Hoogwegt MSc successful at CCNAP meeting Copenhagen
Nikki Damen MSc and Madelein Hoogwegt MSc were very successful at the recent 12th Annual Spring Meeting on Cardiovascular Nursing (CCNAP) in Copenhagen. They are on the CCNAP (ESC) websites with a press release for their abstracts. Also, both Nikki Damen and Susanne Pedersen PhD won the prize for the best oral abstract in their session.
More information
March 2012
Susanne Pedersen Member of EACPR
Susanne Pedersen PhD (MPNP/CoRPS) has been elected Nucleus Member of the Cardiac Rehabilitation Section of the EACPR (European Association for Cardiovascular Prevention & Rehabilitation, a registered branch of the European Society of Cardiology, ESC). The mission of the ESC is to reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease in Europe. Cardiac Rehabilitation is a secondary prevention program, with exercise as the cornerstone of a comprehensive intervention which includes an educational program, risk factors control and the patient’s voluntarily adoption of a healthy lifestyle to be kept for lifetime. The ESC represents more than 70.000 cardiology professionals across Europe and the Mediterranean. The ESC provides a wide array of scientific and educational activities, such as the production and continuous updating of Clinical Practice Guidelines, the organisation of educational courses and initiatives and pan-European surveys on specific disease areas. It also organises the ESC Congress, the largest medical meeting in Europe. The ESC also holds, subspecialty congresses, which are becoming increasingly popular within the profession.The ESC also edits and publishes 7 of the world's leading journals on cardiology.
February 2012
PhD defense Bernard Stienen
Last February 1st, Bernard Stienen defended his thesis ‘The processing of bodily and facial expression with and without visual awareness’. Supervisor: prof.dr. Beatrice de Gelder.
Press Release
The PhD defense was preceded by a symposium ‘The non-conscious mind', organized by Bernard Stienen, Marco Tamietto, Ruud Hortensius and Beatrice de Gelder.
In recent years, a number of studies using different techniques have shown that neutral and affective visual signals can be processed without being consciously perceived. Non-conscious perception has been demonstrated in patients with cortical blindness as well as in healthy participants in whom non-conscious perception was induced by experimental manipulation. Processing signals with high social and biological value without visual awareness plays an important role in everyday life by influencing our behaviors and thoughts, including cognitive control processes. In this symposium various speakers will present state-of-the art findings from different perspectives (e.g. data from fMRI, masking, patients studies) to provide insights on the neural and behavioral mechanisms underlying non-conscious visual processing of neutral and emotions signals.
January 2012
PhD defense Charlotte Sinke
Last January 27, Charlotte Sinke defended her thesis entitled: ‘Perception of emotions from faces and bodies and the influence of context’. Supervisor: prof.dr. Beatrice de Gelder and prof.dr. Rainer Goebel (Maastricht University).
Press Release
January 2012
PhD Loes Smeijers on unnecessarily lost donor organs
Loes Smeijers MSc, PhD student at CoRPS recently got a lot of attention in the media because she published a study at Utrecht University, commissioned by the Dutch Transplantation Foundation.A lot of potential donor organs are ‘lost’ unnecessarily because it is often not known whether the deceased want to make their organs available after they passed away. Therefore people should be stimulated to make a carefully considered choice.
Algemeen Dagblad (Dutch)
January 2012
van de Poll and Thong in European Journal of Cancer
Methods: Individuals alive and diagnosed with colorectal cancer and melanoma between 1998 and 2007 or Hodgkin lymphoma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma or multiple myeloma between 1999 and 2008 as registered in the Eindhoven Cancer Registry received a questionnaire on work changes and problems with obtaining a new (or extended) health care insurance, life insurance or a home loan; 70% (n = 2892) responded.
Results: Results showed that 28% of all cancer patients experienced changes in their work situation after cancer. Most of them switched to part-time work or stopped working entirely. Patients (3.4%) who tried to obtain a different or upgrade their health care insurance experienced problems and in most cases, these were eventually resolved. Problems with life insurance were somewhat more common with 18% of those who tried to obtain a life insurance experiencing problems. Among patients <50 years, 59% reported these problems. The majority of these patients was rejected by the insurance company (61%) or was accepted at a higher premium (22%). Of the 21% who tried to obtain a home loan, 9% experienced problems. However, 22.2% got accepted eventually, 27.8% got accepted but at a higher mortgage payment and 22.2% got rejected but were eventually accepted by another bank. Conclusions: Almost a third of cancer survivors experienced changes in their work situation after cancer. Problems with obtaining health insurance, life insurance and home loans were also common.
The study gained large media attention:
Volkskrant (Dutch)
Telegraaf (Dutch)
November 2011
Supergrant for Beatrice de Gelder
Beatrice de Gelder PhD, professor of Psychonomics (Department of Medical Psychology and Neuropsychology) was awarded with a prestigious European subsidy (2,5 million euro) for her research of emotions and body language. It is the first time ever for a Tilburg University professor to be awarded with an ERC Advanced Grant. In the Netherlands Victor Lammer (Amsterdam) and Rainer Goebel (Maastricht) preceded Bea de Gelder in obtaining this grant.
Click here for more information about the research of prof. Beatrice de Gelder.
November 2011
Midterm Review committee highly prizes CoRPS
In May 2011 CoRPS was reviewed by an international Midterm Review committee. The members of the Review committee, professor James A. Blumenthal (chairman, Duke University), professor Wolfgang Linden (University of British Columbia, Canada), professor Aartjan Beekman (VU Medisch Centrum, Amsterdam) and dr. Robert Braam (secretary, Rathenau Instituut) performed a midterm assessment of the research quality of CoRPS. Their conclusions were the following:
Quality : 4-5 (very good to excellent)
Productivity : 4-5 (very good to excellent)
Relevance : 4 (very good)
Vitality and feasibility : 4-5 (very good to excellent)
The committee concuded:
The Committee was very impressed with the Institute and recognized the important scientific and societal contributions that it has made in the three short years of its existence. The Institute has grown extremely quickly over this brief time and has clearly established itself as a leader in the field-- both nationally and internationally.
Global / English