NL
Roshan Cools, professor of Cognitive Neuropsychiatry at Radboudumc & Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour will study substances in the brain that are involved in the cognitive control of behaviour (Balancing brain chemicals for boosting meta-control - CHEMCONTROL). Just before her plane taxies off to the runway, she explains what the innovative project is about: "In science, but also in society, we focus almost exclusively on goal-directed, effortful control, and assign disproportionate value to industriousness, working hard at all time, both physically and mentally. Sometimes that's an effective strategy, but sometimes it's not. The challenge is to know when to work had and exert control and when rather to let go of effortful control and save our energy. In my ERC project, we will study how the brain computes when effortful control is required and when it is not, and how we decide when to prioritize which behavioral strategy.