René Freichel started his PhD at the University of Amsterdam, where he will study the transdiagnostic role of cognitive control in mental disorders, both from a brain and a symptom network perspective. Cognitive control broadly refers to the ability to select, monitor and control behaviours and thoughts to achieve one’s goals.
René Freichel graduated with two master’s degrees in Psychology and Data Science at the University of Amsterdam. This makes up the perfect combination to proceed as a researcher in the NSMD consortium, since the study of symptom networks of people with a mental disorder takes place at the cross section of psychology and data science.
One of his studies concerns the longitudinal trajectory in the development of cognitive control throughout adolescence, and its relationship to the emergence of mental disorders. The aim of this study is to bridge the gap between the development of cognitive control and mental disorders which have been mostly studied in isolation so far. Next to this, the link between cognitive control and reward and punishment will be studied, but also how cognitive control fits in the symptom network model of mental disorders.
René Freichel will join the Cognitive Control Team, under the supervision of Reinout Wiers.