Natacha Deroost

Natacha Deroost is a Professor at Brussels University, affiliated with the Brain, Body and Cognition department. Her research focuses on learning and memory mechanisms, implicit learning processes, and memory disorders, with special emphasis on Parkinson's disease and cerebellar contributions to social cognition. She has led numerous high-impact projects, including the PRISM network for mental health research and studies on cerebellar tDCS effects on mentalizing and inhibitory control. With an h-index of 14 and over 1,800 research outputs, she is globally recognized for her work on the cerebellum's role in social action prediction and sequence learning.

Education: Master's thesis in Neuropsychology (2001) under Prof. Eric Soetens at Brussels University. Active in PhD supervision since 2015, overseeing research on autism spectrum disorders, Parkinson's cognitive impairments, and ICT integration in education.

Awards:

• BAPS Best Poster Award (2005)
• Psychonomic Society Fellowship (2011)

Research Highlights:

• Elucidated cerebellar-cerebral networks underlying social mentalizing through dynamic causal modeling
• Developed tDCS protocols to improve inhibitory control in alcohol use disorders
• Discovered impaired implicit sequence learning in Parkinson's patients with freezing of gait

Collaborations: Active in international networks including the SRP-Onderzoekszwaartepunt (Social and Cognitive Brain) program and the PRISM mental health consortium. Engaged in interdisciplinary work spanning neuroscience, psychology, and clinical neurology.