• To learn more about our research, go to: Habit Lab at the University of Amsterdam

Biographical Sketch

Sanne de Wit graduated from the University of Nijmegen in 2002, and then received a scholarship to obtain her PhD degree at the Dept. of Experimental Psychology of the University of Cambridge. Her PhD project was supervised by Prof. Anthony Dickinson and concerned the associative and neural mechanisms mediating goal-directed action, habits, and response conflict resolution. She then moved on to a postdoc position at the Dept. of Psychiatry (2006-2008) to collaborate with Prof. Paul Fletcher on the translation of animal models to human psychology and neuroimaging. Since 2008 she works at the University of Amsterdam and has extended her research to include the study of impulsive and compulsive behaviour; first as a postdoc in the lab of Prof. Richard Ridderinkhof at the Dept. of Developmental Psychlogy, and presently as an Associate Professor at the Dept. of Clinical Psychology.  In 2014, she obtained a 5-year personal (VIDI) grant (800.000 euros) to investigate the effect of cognitive planning on habit formation ('Implementation intentions: can the brain strategically generate instant habits?').

Next to her research, she teaches several courses at the UvA and supervises students on research projects (see Teaching). She is also a member of the Research Master Committee, and Associate Editor of Frontiers in Cognition and of Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. She co-supervises the PhD project of Poppy Watson (NWO programme of excellence).

My research Interests

My interests lie at the interface between associative learning theory, behavioural neuroscience, and clinical psychology. The overarching idea behind my research is that fundamental mechanisms of learning and motivation lie at the basis of decision-making and can give rise to adaptive as well as maladaptive behaviour.

Conventional experimental paradigms that require participants to respond according to instructed stimulus-response mappings are not suitable for the study of incentive modulation of goal-directed action. To overcome this limitation, I develop experimental paradigms that are direct translations from animal models. I combine behavioural analyses with a neurobiological approach, using mainly functional Magnetic Resonance Imagin g to investigate the neural underpinnings of actions and habits.

To investigate whether disruptions of fundamental learning and motivational mechanisms play a role in complex, clinical conditions, I currently collaborate with clinical researchers in the setting of, for example: obsessive-compulsive disorder, addiction and obesity .  

Read more about...

• http://www.uva.nl/nieuws-agenda/nieuws/uva-nieuws/content2/2014/07/vidi-sanne-de-wit.html

• UvA press release: Brain connections determine if you are a creature of habit

• Cambridge press release: Compulsions lead to obsessions, not other way around

• NWO programme of excellence: The role of cognition and emotion in decision-making

• MindOpen interview: At the neural frontier of conscious and automatic control

• Psy interview: Dwangpatienten op de automatische piloot

• Kennislink artikel: De hersenroute der gewoonte

• Hoe?Zo! Radio: Wat bepaalt of je uit macht der gewoonte handelt? Het antwoord is te vinden in de hersenen

Refereed Academic Publications

• Worbe Y., Savulich G., de Wit, S., Fernandez-Egea E., Robbins T.W. (in press). Tryptophan depletion promotes habitual over goal-directed control of appetitive responding in humans. The International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology
• van de Vijver, I., Ridderinkhof, K.R., & de Wit, S. (in press). Age-related changes in deterministic learning from positive versus negative performance feedback. Aging, Neuropsychology and Cognition
• de Wit, S. & Dickinson, A. (in press). Ideomotor mechanisms of goal-directed behavior. In T.S. Braver (Ed.), Motivation and Cognitive Control. New York: Psychology Press
• Watson, P., van Steenbergen, H., de Wit, S., Wiers, R.W., & Hommel, B.  (in press). Limits of ideomotor action-outcome acquisition. Brain Research

• Watson, P., Wiers, R.W., Hommel, B., & de Wit, S. (2014). Working for food you don't desire - cues interfere with goal-directed food-seeking.Appetite, 79:139-48
• de Wit, S., van de Vijver, I., & Ridderinkhof, K.R. (2014). Impaired acquisition of goal-directed action in healthy aging. Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience), 14(2), 647-658
• Geurts, H.M. & de Wit, S. (2014). Goal-directed action control in children with autism spectrum disorders. Autism, 18(4), 409-418.
• Sjoerds, Z., de Wit, S., van den Brink, W., Robbins, T.W.R., Beekman, A.T.F., Penninx, B.W.J.H., & Veltman, D.J. (2013). Behavioral and neuroimaging evidence for overreliance on habit learning in human addiction. Translational Psychiatry, 3(e337)
• O'Callaghan, C., Moustafa, A.A., de Wit, S., Shine, J.M., Robbins, T.W., Lewis. S.G., & Hornberger, M. (2013). Fronto-striatal grey matter contributions to discrimination learning in Parkinson's disease. Front. Comput. Neurosci. 7:180. doi: 10.3389/fncom.2013.00180
• Watson, P., de Wit , S., Cousijn, J., Hommel, B., & Wiers, R.W. (2012). Motivational mechanisms underlying the approach bias to cigarettes. Journal of Experimental Psychopathology. DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00440
• de Wit , S., Ridderinkhof, K.R., Fletcher P.C., & Dickinson, A. (2012). Resolution of outcome-induced conflict by humans after extended training. Psychological Research. DOI 10.1007/s00426-012-0467-3
• Watson, P., de Wit , S., Hommel, B., & Wiers, R.W. (2012). Motivational mechanisms and outcome expectancies underlying the approach bias towards addictive substances. Frontiers in Cognition, 3:440. 
• de Wit , S., Watson, P., Harsay, H.A., Cohen, M.X., van de Vijver, I., & Ridderinkhof, K.R. (2012). Corticostriatal Connectivity Underlies Individual Differences in the Balance between Habitual and Goal-Directed Action Control. Journal of Neuroscience, 32(35),12066-12075.
• Robbins, T.W., Gillan, C.M., Smith, D.G., de Wit , S.,& Ersche, K.D. (2012). Neurocognitive endophenotypes of impulsivity and compulsivity: towards dimensional psychiatry. Trends in Cognitive Sciences,  16(1), 81-91.  
• de Wit , S., Standing, H.R., DeVito, E.E., Robinson, O.J., Ridderinkhof, K.R., Robbins, T.W., & Sahakian, B.J. (2012). Reliance on Habits at the expense of Goal-Directed Control following Dopamine Precursor Depletion. Psychopharmacology, 219, 621-631.        
• Gillan,C.M., Papmeyer, M., Morein-Zamir, S., Sahakian, B.J., Fineberg, N.A., Robbins, T.W., & de Wit , S. (2011). Impaired Goal-Directed Action Control in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry, 168,718-726.
• Moore, J.W, Turner, D.C., Corlett, P.R., Arana, F.S., Morgan, H.L., Absalom, A.R., Adapa, R., de Wit , S., Everitt, J.C., Gardner, J.M., Pigott, J.S., Haggard, P., & Fletcher, P.C. (2011). Ketamine administration in healthy volunteers reproduces aberrant agency experiences associated with schizophrenia, Cognitive Neuropsychiatry , 6, 1-18.
• de Wit , S., Barker, R., Dickinson, A., & Cools, R. (2011). Habitual versus Goal-Directed Action Control in Parkinson's Disease, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience , 23(5), 1218-1229.
• Fletcher, P.C., Napolitano, A., Skeggs, A., Miller, S., Delafont, B., Cambridge, V., de Wit , S., Nathan, P., Brooke, A., O'Rahilly, S., Farooqi,S., & Bullmore, E. (2010).Distinct modulatory effects of satiety and sibutramine on brain responses to food images in humans: a double dissociation across hypothalamus, amygdala and ventral striatum. Journal of Neuroscience , 30(434), 14346-14355.
• de Wit , S., Corlett, P. R., Aitken, M. R., Dickinson, A., & Fletcher, P. C. (2009). Differential engagement of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex by goal-directed and habitual behavior toward food pictures in humans. Journal of Neuroscience , 29(36), 11330-11338.
• de Wit , S., Ostlund, S., Balleine, B.W., & Dickinson, A. (2009). Resolution of Conflict between Goal-directed Actions: OutcomeEncoding and Neural Control Processes. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes ,35(3), 382-393.
• de Wit , S., & Dickinson, A. (2009). Associative theories of Goal-directed Behaviour: a Case for Animal-Human Translational Models. Psychological Research , 73(4), 463-476.
• de Wit , S., Niry, D., Wariyar, R., Aitken, M., & Dickinson, A. (2007). Stimulus-Outcome interactions during instrumental discrimination learning by humans and rats. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes ,33(1), 1-11.
• de Wit , S., Kosaki,Y., Balleine, B.W., & Dickinson, A. (2006). Dorsomedial prefrontal cortex resolves response conflict in rats. Journal of Neuroscience , 26(19), 5224-5229.
• Dickinson, A., & de Wit , S. (2003). The interaction between discriminative stimuli andoutcomes during instrumental learning. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section B - Comparative and Physiological Psychology , 56(1), 127-139.
• Dibbets, P., Maes, J.H.R., Van den Berg, P., de Wit , S., & Vossen,J.M.H.(2002). Featurepositive discriminations in adults andchildren. Cognitive Development , 17 (2), 1235-1248.
• Mineur, Y.S., F. Sluyter, F., de Wit , S., Oostra, B.A., & Crusio, W.E. (2002). Behavioral and neuroanatomical characterization of the Fmr1 knockout mouse. Hippocampus , 12(1), 39-46.

Classes 2013/2014

Learning & Motivation in Psychopathology (Research Master course):  It is becoming increasingly clear that fundamental learning and motivation (L&M) processes underlie the transition from functional to dysfunctional behaviour in psychopathology. The aim of this course is not to provide a complete and detailed survey of all possible factors that underlie a given pathology, but rather to examine in depth currently popular L&M hypotheses. In this course we will connect recent behavioural research (into, for example, prediction error learning, habitual and goal-directed action, and incentive salience; in animals as well as humans) and neuroscientific research (into, for example, the role of dopamine and corticostriatal circuits) to psychopathologies (as for example, schizophrenia, drug abuse, obesity and obsessive-compulsive disorder). We will assess what these pathologies have in common, but also critically examine the differences and the limitationsof existing L&M theories.

Bachelor course (Clinical Psychology) on Cognitive Function Disorders and Psychoses

Available research internships

• External stimulus control over food-seeking: The aim of this project is to investigate the associative mechanisms that mediate external stimulus control over food-seeking and that may ultimately underlie obesity in an environment that constantly reminds one of available, palatable food.
• Compulsive Avoidance Habits: Stimulus-response habit learning may mediate the transition from repetitive, goal-directed action towards compulsive responding, as for example hand-washing or checking in obsessive-compulsive disorder. These actions were initially executed to achieve relief from anxiety, but may gradually become automatic and therefore controlled by the external environment. The aim of this project is to investigate the conditions under which such habits are formed.
• Disrupting reconsolidation of stimulus-response habits   
• The effect of DBS treatment on action control: This project involves testing obsessive-compulsive patients on/off DBS treatment. (The student needs to be a native Dutch speaker).

If you're a Master student and you're interested in contributing to this research, please email a letter with your motivation + your c.v. to: s.dewit@uva.nl .

Career

Since 2011: Assistant professor at the Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands      

2008-2011: Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Department of Developmental Psychology and at the Cognitive Science Center (CSCA), University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands (in Prof. Ridderinkhof's Lab)

Since 2008: Honorary Member of the Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, University of Cambridge , UK

2006-2008: Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge , UK (in Prof. Fletcher's Lab)

2007: Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute (part-time),University of Cambridge , UK (in Dr. Cools' Lab)

Education

2002-2006:  Ph.D. at the Department of Experimental Psychology , University of Cambridge , UK. Sponsored by scholarship of Merck, Sharp & Dohme.

PhD Supervisor: Prof. Anthony Dickinson        

Research topic: Associative and Neural Mechanisms Mediating Habit Strategies to Resolve Goal-Related Response Conflict in Animals and Humans              

2005: Visiting Researcher at the Department of Psychology, University of California , USA (in Prof. Balleine's lab)

1997-2002: Master degree in Biological Psychology , University of Nijmegen , The Netherlands

During my study I conducted research internships at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique , France , and at the University of Cambridge, UK. Next to my study, I worked as a student assistant at the Max Planck Institute of Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen.

• No ancillary activities