Healthy Brain Study

Infographic Healthy Brain Study

Science meets Business Healthy Brains for Healthy Work

At the start of the event on December 2 Lucy Overbeek from Healthy Brain Study informed us on the why and moreover the how of the study that started in 2017 to unrafel the brain of people in their 30’s from the Nijmegen region to understand human behavior in daily life. This unique source of data (90 Terabyte!) is used by a.o. Erik Bijleveld and his colleagues to study the impact of work on the mind, body, and brain. Erik singled out two themes for this event; Mental fatigue and Sitting behavior (‘Sitting is the new smoking’). Finally Doeska Anschutz (Founder of The Lab of Life) explained how the data from the HBS and the scientific evidence from Erik’s team has been used to develop a behaviour change training for youth and adults to increase wellbeing.
  
Take a look at the webinar here
 
 

Science Meets Business 2020 about Healthy Brain

On Thursday, December 3, Guillen Fernandez gave a presentation about the Healthy Brain Study.
You can watch the full webinar here:

Webinar Science meets Business about Healthy Brain

Measures against Covid-19

The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted the data acquisition phase. At that point, the HBS included 158 participants. Due to the lockdown, we cancelled all assessments involving physical interaction as of the 16th of March, 2020. The HBS restarted participant assessments on the 15th of July, 2020 in compliance with the directives in force in the Netherlands. As a result, some participants have more than four months between assessments. In addition, some participants collected less than three stool samples, because handling of stool samples was not feasible until December, 2020.

From March until July 2020, participants filled out an additional, monthly questionnaire addressing behavior and worries regarding COVID-19, currently experienced anxiety, stress, and wellbeing. Moreover, loneliness, sedentary behavior, and sleep quality were assessed. We used the same questionnaires as we use in the three repeated assessments.
 

Collaboration

The Healthy Brain Study is a unique, long-term study carried out by Radboud University, Radboudumc and the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, together with other organizations, and volunteers in their thirties.
The more we know about the brain, the more questions we can answer about how we function in our daily lives.

The Healthy Brain Study will investigate which social, biological and environmental factors influence the brain. Scientists can use the results to conduct new studies to resolve social issues. These can involve questions such as: how can I identify and prevent an upcoming burnout? With this new knowledge, we hope to learn how people can become happier, fitter, more self-reliant and more productive. We also aim to contribute to a more sustainable and affordable healthcare system.

We can all make a valuable contribution to this important research. That's why we want to involve organizations and entrepreneurs in Nijmegen and the surrounding area. With the data collected and research questions answered we can support the development of new innovations and encourage positive social impacts.

If you are interested in collaborating in this exciting and innovative research project, please contact:

Arthur Willemsen, Business Developer Healthy Brain Study

arthur.willemsen@radboudumc.nl

06-30541668

Team science makes a difference!

For centuries, the individual, independent scientist – the genius – has been performing research on his own. However, nowadays, only focusing on this way of doing research is insufficient for resolving many questions of present-day science. Instead, we also need larger, systematic studies executed by teams of experts that go beyond collaborations between independent researchers. The Healthy Brain Study stimulates team science. Project leader Guillen Fernandez explains in his blog why we need this rebalancing towards ‘team science’ to achieve better results and better working conditions for the people involved.

Read Guillen's Blog

Comprehension of complex systems – like the human brain - require an interdisciplinary, team science approach. The Healthy Brain Study rationale and design is the result of an orchestrated cross-campus process over the course of 22 months in which 250 scientists from alpha, beta, and gamma faculties were involved and were challenged to look past the horizons of their disciplines in large-scale meetings and several smaller working groups, all providing input to a multidisciplinary scientific board that made the final design decisions.

Read here the first result of our team science endeavor to better understand the human brain functioning in its bio-social context.