User:Colzato/Lorenza Colzato

Lorenza S. Colzato (born 20 September 1974 in Bolzano) is an Italian cognitive psychologist. Colzato studied psychology at University of Padua (Italy). She obtained her Ph.D. at the Leiden University in 2005, under Lex van der Heijden. Since 2006, Colzato is assistant professor at Cognitive Psychology Unit of Leiden University. In 2008, Colzato was awarded the VENI grant. Since March 2010 she is Chief Editor of the open access journal Frontiers in Cognition [].

In broad outline her field of research concerns factors (as for example drugs, stress, emotions, motivations, intelligence, working memory capacity, bilingualism, religion, video game practice, sex orientation, dopamine baseline level) that are known to predict, impair or enhance individual cognitive performance. Combining a cognitive neuroscience perspective with a focus on individual differences, she studies, by means of a wide range of computerized tasks, how cognitive control processes and their neurobiological mechanisms are affected by these factors. Central themes for her are executive control, which refers to a general control mechanism that regulates the dynamics of human cognition, as well as response inhibition, or the ability to interrupt ongoing planned actions. During her post-doc she specialized in various psychophysiological tools, such electro-encephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to link the afore-mentioned behavioural measures with brain activity. In the last years she focused my interest on the short-term effect of emotion/motivation and long-term effect of moderate intake of recreational drugs as cannabis, MDMA (ecstasy), cocaine and khat on executive function. Current projects focus on the genetic and hormonal underpinnings of cognitive control.

Selected Work

 * Colzato, L.S., van Beest, I., van den Wildenberg, W.P.M., Scorolli, C., Dorchin, S., Meiran, N., Borghi, A.M., & Hommel, B. (2010). God: Do I have your attention? Cognition. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2010.07.003
 * Colzato, L. S., Waszack, F. Nieuwenhuis, S. T., Posthuma, D., & Hommel, B. (2010). The flexible mind is associated with the Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) Val158Met polymorphism: Evidence for a role of dopamine in the control of task switching. Neuropsychologia, 48, 2764-2768.
 * Colzato, L. S., van Hooidonk, L., van den Wildenberg, W., Harinck, F., & Hommel, B. (2010). Sexual orientation biases attentional control: a possible gaydar mechanism. Frontiers in Cognition, 1(13), doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00013.
 * Colzato, L. S., van Leeuwen, P.J.A., van den Wildenberg, W., & Hommel, B. (2010). DOOM’d to switch: Superior cognitive flexibility in players of first person shooter games. Frontiers in Cognition, 1(8), doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00008.
 * Colzato, L. S., Hertsig, G., van den Wildenberg, W., & Hommel, B. (2010). Estrogen modulates inhibitory control in healthy human females: Evidence from the stop-signal paradigm. Neuroscience, 167, 709-715.
 * Colzato, L. S., Huizinga, M., & Hommel, B. (2009). Recreational polydrug use of cocaine impairs cognitive flexibility but not working memory. Psychopharmacology, 207, 225-234.