M.Sc., PhD Student
Sarah joined the lab in 2025 as a PhD student, where she is investigating approach-avoidance behavior in patients with anhedonia and anxiety disorders, and whether the balance of approach-avoidance trade-offs can be shifted through transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS).
Sarah studied Clinical Psychology at Medical School Hamburg, where she completed her Bachelor’s degree in 2023 and received the award for the best thesis for her work on the neural correlates of anhedonia. This first sparked her interest in motivational deficits and neuroscience. She then continued her Master’s in Clinical Psychology in Hamburg, during which she worked as a research assistant for Jutta Peterburs (ISM Institute for Systems Medicine) and Sebastian Ocklenburg (ICAN Institute for Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience), conducting EEG-based research on reward learning and cerebral laterality, and attending the Society for Psychophysiological Research Conference in Prague (2024) on a stipend. She completed her Master’s in 2025 with a thesis on cerebello-cerebral functional connectivity following cerebellar stroke, using causal discovery analysis applied to resting-state fMRI data. Throughout her studies, Sarah was recognized for her social engagement, serving as a student representative in the Academic Senate and on the Central Examination Board, and representing her cohort in the Student Council.