M.Sc. Vera Ludwig

I studied Psychobiology at the University of Amsterdam and received my Bachelor’s degree in 2007. In 2008 I completed the Master’s programme Human Cognitive Neuropsychology at the University of Edinburgh. For my Master’s thesis, I investigated tactile-visual associations in synaesthetes and non-synaesthete adults and children. After graduating I stayed for some months at the Primate Research Institute of Kyoto University in Inuyama, Japan. In collaboration with Tetsuro Matsuzawa and Ikuma Adachi, I carried out a study concerning visuo-auditory associations in chimpanzees and humans.

Since September 2009 I have been working in Professor Henrik Walter’s team, first at the Department of Medical Psychology at the University of Bonn, then at the Charité in Berlin. Since May 2010 I have been doing my PhD at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain under the supervision of Henrik Walter, Norbert Kathmann and Christine Stelzel. I am interested in how people resist temptations in order to reach their long-term goals (e.g., resisting a muffin in order to live healthily). In my PhD project I investigate the neural mechanisms involved in this type of willpower by fMRI.