Welcome to the Social Anxiety and Specific Phobia (SASP) Research Group!

From basic science to real-world interventions

Can a newly developed, app-based, personalized maintenance program enhance the effectiveness of the exposure-based one-session-treatment for children with a specific phobia?

Anxiety disorders, like specific phobias, are among the most prevalent mental health disorders that may hinder children in their development. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is considered an effective treatment for childhood anxiety. After treatment, children are encouraged to practice at home with…

Children with a specific phobia are excessively afraid of certain objects, animals or situations. Specific phobias are common in children, but they can make the child’s life at home, school and outside quite difficult. Together with a large international team, we developed the KibA-program to help children…

In this project we looked at children and their relationships with peers. We wanted to learn more about the well-being of children and how this is linked to topics such as friendships, anxiety and social skills. By looking at these topics and their interplay, we can learn more about how children are…

From basic science to real-world interventions

Our team consists of the following members.

The main focus of our research programme is on adolescence, a key transitional period in human development. The programme puts emphasis on combined experimental behavioural and neural analysis of normative transitions and deviations in adolescent development.

On Sunday night 25 September, all the lights in Leiden will switch off and we will see the starry sky above us twinkling in all its glory. A unique opportunity for all residents of Leiden to experience the vastness of the cosmos and view the impressive artwork that hangs over our heads every night.…

How can we facilitate the early recognition of stress and anxiety in the classroom and collaborate with schools in providing low-threshold interventions?

Together with researchers from over the world, the ENIGMA-Anxiety Working Group endeavors to unravel the neurobiology of anxiety disorders and related constructs.

The development process of any software has become extremely important not just in the IT industry, but in almost every business or domain of research.

We strive to address the challenge of constructing a modeling language to write software which can take advantage of recent hardware developments (multicore, cloud) without compromising in its abstraction levels.

Our mission is to recognise and treat stress and anxiety in children as early as possible, by connecting scientific research, clinical practice and education.

This dissertation aims at enhancing our knowledge of whether a CI provides sufficient access to auditory speech input to acquire verbal morphology by comparing outcomes of CI children to those of their normal hearing peers and to those of children with specific language impaired (SLI).

In this book liposomes are explored as delivery system for allergen-specific immunotherapy. Both cationic and anionic formulations are prepared with Bet v 1, one of the allergens in birch pollen.

Our team is involved in the translation and adaptation of several questionnaires, for research purposes. Information about each questionnaire is listed below.

In Film and Video Intermediality, Janna Houwen innovatively rewrites the concept of medium specificity in order to answer the questions “what is meant by video?” and “what is meant by film?”

The ‘empathic mind’ in children with Specific Language Impairments (SLI); what can children with SLI understand of other people’s minds and emotions?

Our in-house human skin equivalents contain all stratum corneum (SC) barrier lipid classes, but have a reduced level of free fatty acids (FAs), of which a part is mono-unsaturated. These differences lead to an altered SC lipid organization and thereby a reduced barrier function compared to human skin.…

Do large deletions represent a risk during CRISP/CAS9-mediated genome editing in plants?

Promotor: Prof.dr. G.R. de Snoo, Co-promotores: Dr. ing. M.G. Vijver, J.P.M. Vink

Extending our current arsenal of antibiotics is key to staying ahead in the arms race between humans and resistant bacteria.

Schneider

Whilst government’s ability to design ‘context-specific’ regional innovation policy is generally assumed to depend on the region’s decision-making power, the aim of this study is to investigate how regional government matters. In order to open up the black box of policy design, the study develops a…

In this project, the hypothesis that language contact crucially impacts the development of spatial grammar and phonology is investigated.

The external tissues of plants and animals are colonized by microbial communities termed microbiota. When organisms are exposed to environmental pollutants, these substances will therefore encounter microbiota at the exposure interface.

The aim of this work was to study the applicability of antigen-coated pH-sensitive microneedle arrays for effective vaccination strategies. Therefore, a model antigen (ovalbumin) was coated onto pH-sensitive (pyridine-modified) microneedle arrays to test pH-triggered antigen release by applying the…

In this project, the hypothesis that language contact crucially impacts the development of spatial grammar and phonology is investigated.

For effective cancer immunotherapy by vaccination, co-delivery of tumour antigens and adjuvants to dendritic cells and subsequent activation of antigen-specific cytotoxic T cells (CTLs) is crucial. In this study, a synthetic long peptide (SLP) harbouring the model CTL epitope SIINFEKL was encapsulated…

Migraine is a brain disease. If it were simple, we would have solved it already'. That is the title of the inaugural lecture delivered by Professor of Neurology Gisela Terwindt on Friday 3 June. In her speech she emphasises the importance of research into the differences between women and men with m…

The recently opened ICPA (International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression Against Ukraine) in The Hague will be responsible for coordinating the prosecution of Russia for the crime of aggression and possibly also the prosecution of Vladimir Putin. The ICPA aims to close the gaps…

There have been indications for decades that there is a link between increased iron levels in the brain and Alzheimer’s disease. Leiden physicists find this connection as well, thereby now making a distinction between different forms of iron. They identify specific iron forms that increase in Alzheimer’s…

Teachers have to find a balance between routine and renewal of their teaching repertoire. Eveline de Boer (PhD student at ICLON) investigated how didactic building blocks can help them with this. Defence on June 15.

The sixth specialisation of the Master Crisis and Security Management (CSM) will start in September 2023: Governance of Violence. Coordinator of this track is Professor Marieke Liem. She talks about the how and why of this new track and the importance of research in and knowledge of the nature and scope…

The new Dutch government must act quickly to take rapid, far-reaching measures in three specific regions to tackle nitrogen emissions. This will create the space for a long-term strategy to deal with other urgent problems and the knot of obligations that the state will need to untangle. These are the…

Our research regularly receives attention in the (Dutch) popular media. Here is an overview.

What do climate change and traditional Japanese music have to do with each other? A great deal, university lecturer Andrea Giolai suspects. He has been awarded an NWO grant to study the relationship in more depth.

This thesis describes the design and synthesis of fragments of various cell wall carbohydrates of the Streptococcus species, including the branched Group B-specific antigen (GBC) of Group B Streptococcus, glycerol phosphate (GroP) modified group A carbohydrate (GAC), and the O-acetylated type 1 capsular…

Promotores: Prof.dr. W.J.G.M. Peijnenburg & Dr. M.G. Vijver

Promotor: Prof.dr. W.T.F. den Hollander, Prof. dr. E.A. Verbitskiy

Heterogeneous catalyzed processes are highly significant to the chemical industry. Dissociative chemisorption (DC) of molecules on surfaces is always considered as a step with a high degree of rate control for heterogeneous catalysis.