Yannick Mijster joins the Blanke Lab as PhD candidate
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Yannick will use artificial intelligence and home-based technology to unravel the brain mechanisms of apathy, agency and related cognitive functions in healthy participants and patients with Parkinson’s Disease.
Yannick holds a Bachelor's degree in Technical Computer Science from the University of Twente (Netherlands) and a Master's degree in Business Informatics from Utrecht University. He recently completed a Master's degree in Cognitive Science at the University of Neuchâtel.
Yannick has a background in software development and IT consultancy and, after 5 years in industry, decided to move to cognitive neuroscience. During his Master's thesis in our Lab, he combined his software development skills with cognitive science and build from scratch a new online platform for behavioural experiments. He used the online platform to explore the relationship between the sense of agency and apathy, a line of research he will continue during his PhD. His doctoral research will aim at 1) improving the quantification and repeated measurement of both hallucinations and apathy using new methods that merge generative large language models with clinical interview techniques, 2) explore the relationship between apathy and the sense of agency, and 3) develop online home-based technology to conduct remote experiments and lab-based experiments that also include brain imaging.
Welcome to the lab Yannick !