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The research in the Psychopharmacology group is mainly focused on three categories: drugs and driving, drugs and cognition, and drugs and disorders. Sometimes a study may fall into several classes, such as the role of antidepressants, taken by depressed patients, in driving behavior. The categories are mainly made to give an overview of our research. The Psychopharmacology group uses several facilities to perform the research. The experimental Psychopharmacology Unit has two specially instrumented vehicles for conducting on-the-road driving tests. Furthermore, we share labs for behavioral and imaging studies with other departments from the Faculty of Psychology. For example, we have the availability to perform EEG and fMRI studies, as well as behavioral studies designed to examine changes in behavior after intake of a certain medicine/drug. Safety always comes first in our research, as well as the quality of the examinations. Therefore, Standard Operating Procedures have been devised to make our studies transparent and reliable.
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Quality and Safety Control
Every study carried at the EPU done so in accordance with the highest standards of quality and safety control. This means that both International and national guidelines and regulations apply for all stages of the work carried out. As no two studies are the same all quality and safety aspects are considered before the study starts and subsequently closely monitored during execution, reporting and the filing of data. For individual tests and testing procedures Standard Operating Procedures (SOP’s) have been devised to make them transparent and reliable. Major regulations governing the work at EPU are:
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Facilities
The most specific facilities we have in our unit are our specially instrumented vehicles for on-the-road driving tests. We have two cars, which can be used for city and highway driving, as well as car following. They are equipped with cameras to assess the position of the car within the traffic lane. The Faculty of Psychology of Maastricht University has numerous research facilities, which the Experimental Psychopharmacology Unit can use for the studies. A total of 8 behavioral labs can be used to perform almost any behavioral task possible. For example, we run memory, attention, psychomotor, vigilance, and impulsivity tests in these labs. In many studies, tasks in the lab are compared to those of the driving tests. Another facility we regularly use is the EEG lab. A total of 3 stationary and 2 mobile labs are available for our research. Most of the tasks that are performed in the lab are auditory and visual tests of memory, attention, and psychomotor activity. Furthermore, we recently started using EEG systems to measure sleep during the night. For this, two specially equipped sleep laboratories are available. Finally, we frequently use fMRI our experiments. The Faculty of Psychology currently has one 3 Tesla fMRI scanner (Siemens), but in the future, it is likely that additional scanners will be placed. All fMRI studies are in collaboration with the Maastricht Brain Imaging Centre (MBIC). Most cognitive tasks can be performed with simultaneous fMRI recordings. For example, we have previously used memory, vigilance, and psychomotor tests in the scanner.
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Core research lines
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Research 