Annika Tielkes | TRAINEE
Annika holds a BSc in Biomedical Sciences from Utrecht University. She developed an interest in dopamine mechanisms and the reward system during her bachelor’s internship. Here, she investigated how early opioid exposure might impact reward-related behaviors. Specifically, she examined the effect of prenatal administration of the opioid agonist buprenorphine on social play expression in male and female juvenile rats.
Currently, Annika is pursuing a MSc in Biomedical Sciences with a Medical Neuroscience specialization. As part of her first master’s thesis, she is working under the guidance of Dirk Geurts and Yanfang Xia on their project of identifying neurocognitive predictors of treatment outcomes in patients receiving esketamine therapy for treatment-resistant depression. Annika’s specific focus is on evaluating catecholaminergic activity and its relationship with symptom severity in these patients by analyzing contrasts in neuromelanin-sensitive MRI.