Fin van Uum

I am a current graduate student on the MSc course in Psychological Research. I hold a BSc (Hons) in Psychology from Radboud University, Nijmegen, where I gained broad experience in the field of clinical psychology, especially from a neuroscientific perspective.

I am primarily interested in neuropsychopharmacological research. In particular, I want to bridge the gap between the observed clinical effectiveness of different forms of psychomedications and the exact neurphysiological and neurobiological mechanisms underlying them. This goes hand in hand with further exploring the neurobiological substrates of different forms of psychopathology.

An example of this is is the observation that first- and second generation classical antidepressants, mainly interfering with serotonergic and noradrenergic neurotransmitter systems, as well as NMDA-receptor antagonist ketamine exert antidepressant effects on a clinical level, whilst being characterized by vastly different pharmacological profiles. Discovering the mechanistic foundations of these seemingly paradoxical findings is a primary research goal I have, such that treatment of depression can become both more personalized and effective.

To further these aims, I am working this year in the psychopharmacology and emotion research lab (PERL) at the department of psychiatry, contributing to an fMRI study regarding the cognitive and emotional effects of selective histamine-3 receptor antagonism, which might be a primary target to combat cognitive symptoms of depression.