PhD Candidate — Zurich Center for Neuroeconomics (ZNE), University of Zurich
Pakita van Puyenbroeck
Studying how arousal shapes attention, memory, and decisions.
About
I'm a PhD candidate at the Zurich Center for Neuroeconomics, University of Zurich, where I study the interplay between physiological arousal, attention, and memory formation.
My path into neuroscience started in Antwerp and led through a research internship in translational molecular psychiatry, working on stem-cell models of ADHD, before moving into the computational and psychophysiological side of decision neuroscience in Zürich.
I'm drawn to questions that sit between biology and behavior — how a fleeting change in pupil diameter can reveal something fundamental about how the brain decides what's worth remembering.
Research
Pupil-linked arousal
How phasic changes in arousal, measured through pupil dilation, relate to attention and the encoding of task-irrelevant information.
Memory formation
Why some moments stick and others don't — the link between arousal states and what the brain chooses to consolidate.
Decision & social neuroscience
Neuroeconomic approaches to understanding how physiological state feeds into decision-making.
Translational psychiatry
Earlier work using patient-derived stem cell models to study the neurobiology of ADHD.
Publications
Background
Present
PhD Candidate
Zurich Center for Neuroeconomics, University of Zurich
Prior
Research Intern, Translational Molecular Psychiatry
Dept. of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Zurich / PUK
Earlier
Education
Antwerp, Belgium