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Social sciences
- Biological psychology
- Psychophysiology
- Motivation and emotion
During our life, we face different situations that we can perceive as stressful (for example: a job interview or an exam). Before and during the confrontation with these stressful situations, some important changes occur in our mind and body: we feel more anxious and less happy, our heart starts to beat faster, and our body produces more cortisol (the so-called hormone of stress). If these reactions are too extreme (for example too much anxiety, heartbeat and cortisol levels), it can hamper our health. People can control these psychological and physiological reactions to some extent, but some people will do this better than others. A person that has problems with controlling these mind and bodily changes is at risk of important health problems (for example depression). In this project, our goal is to investigate how people can control their mind and body changes before and during a stressful situation. Specifically, we will investigate how a brain area (called Prefrontal cortex) and a cognitive process (called cognitive control) participates in the control of the stress reactions. This project is important because stress is worldwide a major cause of disease burden, and our results may be useful to develop new psychological therapies and prevention programmes.