My dream is to understand how what others feel and do influences how we feel and what we do. Why does it make us shudder to see a friend injure themselves? Why do we so intuitively understand how our partner feels? How does it motivate us to help others?
Together with my social brain lab, located within the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience of the KNAW, we use thnin.e powerful tools of neuroscience to contribute to our understanding of these questions. Using a combination of non-invasive neuroimaging in humans and invasive neurophysiology in animals, we study how the neurons involved in our own actions, sensations and emotions come to play to let us share and predict the actions, sensations and emotions of others and to take social decisions.
This research helps us understand the fabric of our social nature, empathy and prosociality and why some of us struggle with the social world more than others.