Clinical Brain Stimulation Part A

Alexander T. Sack graduated from Frankfurt University, Germany with a Master of Science in Psychology (2000) and PhD in Natural Sciences (2003). He completed several international postdoctoral and academic research positions before being appointed as Professor of Brain Stimulation and Applied Cognitive Neuroscience at the Faculty of Psychology & Neuroscience, Maastricht University, The Netherlands in 2011. As the Principal Investigator of the research section “Brain Stimulation and Cognition” at the Maastricht Brain Imaging Centre, his research focuses on the neurobiological and psychological principles underlying attention, learning, memory, and cognitive control; combining various brain research techniques, ranging from psychophysics and eye-tracking, to functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), Electroencephalography (EEG), and Noninvasive Brain Stimulation (NIBS). His group pioneered the development of simultaneously implemented TMS-fMRI-EEG during cognitive behavior, allowing to apply brain-stimulation while recording the individual brain network (fMRI) and oscillation (EEG) responses of cognitively engaged participants. This multimodal brain stimulation approach allows to investigate the neural network dynamics underlying human cognition in healthy volunteers and to translate these findings into clinical applications for treating various neurological and neuropsychiatric brain disorders. Chris Baeken is currently a professor at the University of Ghent. He also works as a psychiatrist specializing in the neurobiological field of Affective Disorders.