Marieke van der Schaaf PhD

Bio

With a background in both clinical neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience I aim to build bridges between cognitive neurosciences, medical sciences and clinical practice. I strive to increase our mechanistic understanding of neural mechanisms underlying motivational deficits and fatigue in medical diseases to ultimately improve its pharmacological and behavioural treatment. More specifically, I aim to identify the dissociable effects of biological and psychological factors on mental well-being. To this end I study the role of immune-brain interactions in the emergence and maintenance of motivational symptoms after disease. For this I combine immune and pharmacological manipulations with neuroimaging,  immune (blood sampling), behavioural (e.g. effort based decision making), and questionnaire outcomes  in both healthy populations and (longitudinal) patient studies.

Expertise

Sickness behaviour, Motivation, Fatigue, Cancer-related fatigue

Cost-benefit decision making, valence-based learning, reversal learning, cognitive flexibility

Neuroimaging (task-fMRI, sMRI, MRS)

Courses

• Master's Internship CNP External
• Brain Dysfunction

Recent publications

1. Fatigue during acute systemic inflammation is associated with reduced…

   Lambregts, B. I. H. M., Vassena, E., Jansen, A., Stremmelaar, D. E., Pickkers, P., Kox, M., Aarts, E., & van der Schaaf, M. E. (2023). Fatigue during acute systemic inflammation is associated with reduced mental effort expenditure while task accuracy is preserved. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity: An international journal, 112, 235-245.

2. Acquisition learning is stronger for aversive than appetitive events

   van der Schaaf, M. E., Schmidt, K., Kaur, J., Gamer, M., Wiech, K., Forkmann, K., & Bingel, U. (2022). Acquisition learning is stronger for aversive than appetitive events. Communications biology, 5(1), 302.

3. Effort but not Reward Sensitivity is Altered by Acute Sickness Induce…

   Draper, A., Koch, R. M., van der Meer, J. W., Aj Apps, M., Pickkers, P., Husain, M., & van der Schaaf, M. E. (2018). Effort but not Reward Sensitivity is Altered by Acute Sickness Induced by Experimental Endotoxemia in Humans. Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 43(5), 1107-1118.

4. Fatigue Is Associated With Altered Monitoring and Preparation of Phys…

   van der Schaaf, M. E., Roelofs, K., de Lange, F. P., Geurts, D. E. M., van der Meer, J. W. M., Knoop, H., & Toni, I. (2018). Fatigue Is Associated With Altered Monitoring and Preparation of Physical Effort in Patients With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, 3(4), 392-404.

5. Interleukin-1 as a mediator of fatigue in disease - a narrative review

   Roerink, M. E., van der Schaaf, M. E., Dinarello, C. A., Knoop, H., & van der Meer, J. W. M. (2017). Interleukin-1 as a mediator of fatigue in disease: a narrative review. Journal of neuroinflammation, 14(1), 16.