Lina van Drunen conducts research on individual differences in environment and the genetic effects on structural brain development.

More information about Lina van Drunen

Lina van Drunen conducts research on individual differences in environment and the genetic effects on structural brain development. 

Research

Van Drunen is working as a PhD candidate on ‘Individual differences in environmental and genetic effects on structural brain development’ in the Developmental and Educational Psychology unit at Leiden University. This project is supervised by Prof. Dr. Eveline Crone and Dr. Lara Wierenga and is part of the Leiden Consortium on Individual Development (L-CID). Since there are changes in brain development around early puberty, she wants to find out how these variations are sensitive to puberty and sex. Furthermore, Van Drunen aims to unravel individual differences in sensitive periods of brain development. Sensitive periods reflect ages in which the developing individual is more susceptible to environmental effects. To do so she will work on a large twin sample aged 7-13 years old, including three longitudinal measures. 

Short CV

During her bachelor in Psychobiology, Van Drunen developed an interest in research while contributing to an EEG project on social exclusion at la Sapienza University in Rome. For the first time she felt the rush of science and an urge to develop herself as a researcher. The research master Cognitive Neurobiology and Clinical Neurophysiology in Amsterdam helped her gain confidence in finding solutions to complicated research problems. Her final research master internship in the Brain and Development Research Center in Leiden was a good preparation for her PhD. At this research center she examined self-concept in the fMRI scanner and how genetic and environmental factors influenced the behavior and brain areas involved in self-concept.

Publications