Dr Pascal Vrticka (PhD)
Lecturer / Assistant Professor
Centre for Brain Science – Department of Psychology – University of Essex – Colchester – United Kingdom
Dr Pascal Vrticka is a social neuroscientist with strong ties to developmental & social psychology. His research focuses on the psychological, behavioural, biological, and brain basis of human social interaction, attachment, and caregiving.
One area of Dr Vrticka’s research is dedicated to measuring neurobiological responses to different kinds of social versus non-social information in individual participants. This 1st person social neuroscience approach relies on (functional) magnetic resonance imaging – (f)MRI – and electroencephalography – EEG.
More recently, Dr Vrticka started to assess bio-behavioural synchrony in interacting dyads. The main question of this 2nd person social neuroscience approach is how romantic partners and parents with their children get “in sync” when they solve problems together or talk to each other.
In his bio-behavioural synchrony research, Dr Vrticka is particularly interested in interpersonal neural synchrony. His method of choice to assess interpersonal neural synchrony is functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) hyperscanning. Dr Vrticka combines fNIRS hyperscanning with behavioural observations, interviews, and self reports (i.e., questionnaires).
The principal theoretical framework underlying Dr Vrticka’s research is attachment theory, which describes how we initiate and maintain social relationships across the life span. By adding a systematic 1st and 2nd person social neuroscience perspective to attachment theory and research – also in the form of new functional neuro-anatomical models of organised and disorganised human attachment (NAMA and NAMDA) -, Dr Vrticka is promoting a new area of investigation: the social neuroscience of human attachment.
Contact & Further Information
Additional Academic Roles
PI of the Social Neuroscience of Human Attachment Lab (SoNeAt Lab) at the Centre for Brain Sciences, Department of Psychology, University of Essex
Associate Member of the Executive Board, Society for Emotion and Attachment Studies (SEAS)
Website Menu
Please find below a summary of available information on Dr Pascal Vrticka’s website with direct links to the corresponding sections.
Latest News and Announcements from the SoNeAt Lab and beyond
The Social Neuroscience of Human Attachment Lab (SoNeAt Lab): How to become involved (prospective students), current students & research topics, and student alumni & research topics
Description of the Special Interest Research Group (SIRG) on the Social Neuroscience of Human Attachment (SoNeAt)
Dr Pascal Vrticka’s current and past teaching
Description of SoNeAt Lab’s main field of research
Summary of other research topics that are also part of the SoNeAt Lab
Experimental methods used within the SoNeAt Lab
International collaboration partners of the SoNeAt Lab
List of Dr Pascal Vrticka’s publications
List of Dr Pascal Vrticka’s Talks and other Presentations – Check out the Recordings & Posters available Online
List of grants and awards Dr Pascal Vrticka has received
Dr Pascal Vrticka’s short biography & curriculum vitae
Latest Tweets
Latest Blog Posts
What is Attachment? A Social Neuroscience Perspective
“From a social neuroscience perspective, there are two key principles associated with human attachment behaviours: i) conserving energy resources and ii) making predictions about available support and how costly it is to obtain it. These two key principles are intrinsically linked with one another.” A blog post with the title “What is Attachment? A SocialContinue Reading
Synced brains: how to bond with your kids – according to neuroscience
Coordinated brains. Jacob Lund/Shutterstock Pascal Vrticka, University of Essex Many people across the world are still living under tough restrictions or lockdowns because of the pandemic, staying home as much as possible. This means that a lot of parents are spending more time than ever with their children. But how do you turnContinue Reading
How to stay socially connected as lockdown returns – according to science
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Pascal Vrticka, University of Essex and Philip J. Cozzolino, University of Essex After a fairly relaxed summer, more and more places are bringing back tighter restrictions in response to rising COVID-19 cases, with some even returning to full orContinue Reading
SoNeAt Workshop 2020 – A Virtual Conference on Attachment and Social Neuroscience
On August 12th and 13th 2020, 150 attachment researchers, psychologists, therapists, nurses, and members of non-profit organisations from around the globe (all the way from the west coast of Canada to central Australia) met during a virtual workshop with the title “70 Years of Attachment Research: A Multidisciplinary Social Neuroscience Perspective“. Workshop participants discussed theContinue Reading
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