معرفی
Bram Vervliet is a Professor at the Laboratory for Biological Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven. He serves as Programme Director for the POC Master Psychology (Theory and Research) and is affiliated with the Leuven Centre for Health Humanities and KU Leuven Brain Institute. His research bridges associative learning theory, clinical psychology, and translational neuroscience.
- Education: PhD in Psychology (KU Leuven, 2004)
- Positions: Assistant Professor at University of Amsterdam (2006–2010), Senior Postdoc at KU Leuven (2010–2015), Marie-Curie Fellow at Harvard Medical School (2015–2017)
His research investigates the psychobiological processes underlying fear acquisition, generalization, extinction, and avoidance. Current projects focus on:
- Relief dynamics during threat omission
- Gut-brain axis in fear modulation
- Stress effects on avoidance learning
- Neural basis of relief in OCD and anxiety
- Computational modeling of prediction errors
Recent publications highlight studies on dopamine receptor blockade in rodent avoidance, stress reactivity in humans, and epigenetic modulation of fear memories via gut metabolites. He received a Poster Prize Award at the 4th European Stress Conference (2025).
Notable grants include the VENI grant (University of Amsterdam), Marie-Curie fellowship, and KU Leuven Special Research Fund (BOF) support. He supervises PhD students like Lu Leng (2024 dissertation on anhedonia and learned helplessness).
