Prof. dr. Paul Lucassen

Paul J. Lucassen studied Biomedical Sciences at the Free University in Amsterdam and obtained his PhD (cum laude) in 1996 with Prof.Dr. D.F. Swaab (Netherlands Institute for Brain Research Amsterdam) working on rodent and human brain, focusing on vasopressin, DNA damage and the ‘Use it or lose it’ hypothesis of brain aging and dementia. He did his postdoc on stress, GR, apoptosis and hippocampus with Prof.Dr. E.R. De Kloet at the LACDR in Leiden and worked on stress, GR, neurogenesis and Alzheimer’s disease with Prof.Dr. M. Joels at UvA. There, he started his own group and became full professor of Brain Plasticity at the Swammerdam Institute (SILS) of UvA in 2011.

The research in his Brain Plasticity group focuses on brain plasticity in relation to; (early life) stress, nutrition, exercise, inflammation, environmental enrichment, drugs, cognition, as well as diseases, like depression, MS, head injury and dementia. The group has a strong interest in stem cells and neurogenesis and collaborated extensively with Dutch groups at the NIN (Swaab, Huitinga, Salta), AUMC (Reneman, Schrantee, La Fleur, Van Dam, De Rooij, Van Wingen, Smit) and RUG (Eggen).

Paul was involved in several consortia (ao. Eurogenesis, NEUR-AD, PRIOMED-CHILD, JPI-D-Cogni-plast) and organized various (inter-)national meetings. He teaches in ba/ma programs at UvA and coordinates with Dr. Korosi a successful master track on brain diseases. He is member of various scientific boards, ECNP fellow and past chair of the SABs of Alzheimer NL and of the Campaign Team Huntington. He published >260 papers, >35 book chapters and gave >250 talks, including the UvA Dies Natalis Lecture 2026.

His group at the University of Amsterdam has received support from a.o. Zon-MW, NWO, EU-JPI/H2020, Parkinson Fund, KNAW, ISAO, Valiant fund, ISAO and Alzheimer Nederland. He further is co-recipient of the Urban Mental Health grant, WP-leads in the ZonMW consortia on chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CVS; https://nmcb.eu) and on dementia (Memorabel program MODEM), https://modemproject.nl).

Together with Mario vd Stelt and Inge Huitinga, affiliated as professor in his Brain Plasticity group, and the EB members Eggen, Kole and De Witte, they lead ICNS, focusing on molecular mechanisms of neuropsychiatric disorders using human brain tissue from the NL brain bank.

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Dies Natalis college 2026