Nils B. Kroemer - neuroMADLAB

Prof. Dr. rer. nat., Dipl.-Psych., PI NeuroMADLAB

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Email: nils.kroemer(at)uni-tuebingen.de

Phone: +49 228 287 11151

Nils is PI of the neuroMADLAB. He is head of the Section of Medical Psychology at the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Bonn, and group leader of the Section of Translational Psychiatry at the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Tübingen. Since 2023, Nils is also a PI at the newly established German Center for Mental Health (DZPG) in Tübingen.

The research of Nils’s lab focuses on the neurobiological principles of motivation, action, & desire. His interdisciplinary work aims to identify innovative approaches that improve aberrant motivation and disrupted goal-directed actions in patients suffering from reward dysfunction.

Former and current positions

Nils studied psychology at TU Chemnitz and obtained his PhD from the psychology department of TU Dresden in 2013. His work focuses on all things tempting; what cost are we willing to incur if we receive a reward, and how do we learn when a benefit is worth making an effort? During his PhD, he studied how metabolic feedback, such as caloric intake, modulates brain responses to images of palatable food.

During his postdoc at TU Dresden, he investigated how dopamine affects action control, reinforcement learning, and invigoration. He then received a DFG fellowship to do a second postdoc at the John B. Pierce Laboratory / Yale University in the lab of Prof. Dr. Dana Small. During his time at Yale, he examined altered brain responses to milkshakes in obesity, the role of effort in shaping reward value, and the reinforcing components of e-cigarettes.

In 2017, Nils joined the University of Tübingen as head of the Junior Research Group Computational Psychiatry focusing on ‘neuroscience of motivation, action, and desire’ within the Section of Translational Psychiatry of the Department of Psychiatry & Psychotherapy (head: Prof. Dr. Andreas Fallgatter). The neuroMADLAB received initial support from the Faculty of Medicine (IZKF Junior Research Group) and is part of the Tübingen Center for Mental Health. Moreover, Nils has been working as a section editor for Appetite since 2019 (Psychology & Neuroscience).

In 2022, Nils accepted the offer to join the University of Bonn as the W2-Professor of Medical Psychology at the Department of Psychiatry & Psychotherapy (head: Prof. Dr. Alexandra Philipsen) where he is head of the section now.

Achievements

Throughout his career, Nils has published more than 50 peer-reviewed publications. In 2014, he received the Werner Straub Award for a PhD thesis with the highest distinction from TU Dresden. In 2017, he received an IZKF Junior Research Group award from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Tübingen to support the build-up of his lab. He received a Publons Peer Review Award for his outstanding engagement as a reviewer in the field of ‘neuroscience and behavior’ in 2018. In 2021 and 2022, the research of the lab received publication awards from the Sections of Biopsychology and Neuropsychology of the German Psychological Society. In 2023, he received the research award of the German Association for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics (DGPPN).