Karis Colyer-Patel

After graduating from a bachelor’s in biomedical science, master’s in psychology, and a research master’s in Neuroscience and Cognition at Utrecht University, I started my PhD in October 2021 at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam under the supervision of Janna Cousijn and Hanan El Marroun.
My interest lies in understanding how the developing brain is associated with both risk and resilience to addiction. During my project there will be a focus on understanding age-dependent effects of substance use on motivational and inhibitory control processes. In doing so, I will combine both human and rodent data, taking a translational approach. Besides this, I also want to understand if there are age-related differences in brain structure and connectivity in addiction across different substances. As well as the potential of brain-based measures to predict subsequent trajectories of substance use in adolescence and adulthood. By combining the findings from these studies I hope to shed light on whether the aging brain matters in relation to risk and resilience to addiction.