Professor Jack van Honk PhD (Utrecht) FISN
Social and Clinical Neuroscience
Professor of Clinical Neuroscience, Department of Psychiatry and Member, Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine (IDM), Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, South Africa; Professor of Social Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, Utrecht University (UU), The Netherlands.
Jack van Honk’s research is in the fields of Social and Affective Neuroscience (Human Neuroscience), focusing on the psychobiology of human social-emotional behaviour, with the aim of developing new biological treatments for the psychopathologies of fear and aggression. During his career, he has developed a multidisciplinary set of methodologies which have applied in psychological, psychiatric and neuroscientific research. He was the first researcher worldwide to use both hormonal manipulation and brain stimulation techniques to get direct insight into the psychobiological mechanisms underlying human fear and aggression.
In South Africa, he is project leader on the research into Urbach-Wiethe disease, a rare genetic syndrome (knock-out-of-function mutation of the ECM1 gene), which causes bilateral calcification of the basolateral amygdala, a brain hub in fear and aggression behaviours. He mostly publishes in high-impact international journals such as PNAS, Nature, Neuroimage, Human Brain Mapping, Psychological Science, Psychoneuroendocrinology, Archives of General Psychiatry and Biological Psychiatry.
Selected publications:
van Honk J, Schutter DJ, Bos PA, Kruijt AW, Lentjes EG, Baron-Cohen S. Testosterone administration impairs cognitive empathy in women depending on second-to-fourth digit ratio. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2011 Feb 22;108(8):3448-52.
Bos PA, Terburg D, van Honk J. Testosterone decreases trust in socially naive humans. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010 Jun 1;107(22):9991-5
van Honk J, Montoya ER, Bos PA, van Vugt M, Terburg D. New evidence on testosterone and cooperation. Nature. 2012 May 23;485(7399):E4-5; discussion E5-6.
van Honk J, Eisenegger C, Terburg D, Stein DJ, Morgan B. Generous economic investments after basolateral amygdala damage. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Feb 12;110(7):2506-10.
Terburg D, Syal S, Rosenberger LA, Heany S, Phillips N, Gericke N, Stein DJ, van Honk J. Acute effects of Sceletium tortuosum (Zembrin), a dual 5-HT reuptake and PDE4 inhibitor, in the human amygdala and its connection to the hypothalamus. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2013 Dec;38(13):2708-16.
Contact details:
Dept of Psychiatry and Mental Health
University of Cape Town
Groote Schuur Hospital (J-2), Anzio Rd
Observatory 7925
Cape Town, South Africa
Tel: +27 21 404 2174
Heidelberglaan 1
Room 16.18
3584 CS UTRECHT
The Netherlands
Tel: +31 30 253 4281
Email:
jackvanh@gmail.com
j.vanhonk@uu.nl
Alternate sites: http://www.psychiatry.uct.ac.za/psych/staff/overview
http://www.uu.nl/staff/jvanhonk/0
Group members/PhD supervision:
UCT Psychiatry:
Sarah Heaney, PhD student
Jorique Fourie, MSc student
UCT Psychology:
Donne van de Westhuizen, PhD student
Utrecht University, Psychology:
David Terburg, Assistant Professor (Honorary Associate Professor, UCT Psychiatry)
Peter Bos, Assistant Professor
Estrella Montoya, Assistant Professor
Ronald Reinders, PhD student (Forensic Psychiatrist)
Isabell Meyer, PhD student
Collaborations:
Prof Dan J Stein, UCT Psychiatry
Prof Mark Solms, UCT Psychology
Prof Ron Stroop, University of Lausanne
Prof Christoph Eisenegger, University of Vienna
Prof Simon Baron Cohen, Cambridge University
