Michael van der Kooij

I am a behavioural neuroscientist. After obtaining my PhD at the UMC Utrecht in 2010 I moved to Switzerland. At the EPFL in Lausanne I investigated the effects of chronic stress in rodents. I also looked into the role that mitochondrial energy metabolism played for behaviour. In 2015 I went to Mainz, Germany to specifically interrogate how stress may affect behavioural outcome through metabolic processes with a particular focus on glucose metabolism. Since 2021, I became a principal investigator on a ongoing project involving the role of social stress on the reward system, funded by the DFG (german equivalent of the NWO). In October 2021 I also joined the UMC Utrecht as assistant professor. At the WKZ I aim the study the role of early life stress and neonatal care on functional outcome and metabolic processes. My overall research goals are to understand the neurobiological- as well as (neuro)metabolic processes underlying the negative consequences of stress.