The CONTEXT consortium, led by Radboud University, received a prestigious grant from the NWA. APH researcher Lucres Nauta-Jansen of Amsterdam UMC leads the work package on impact. The prestigious eight-year grant supports research into stress and emotion regulation using neurofeedback VR training. The project aims to help prevent violent escalations between police and young people.
CONTEXTualized emotion bioregulation training for professionals and youth at risk
The rising number of escalating conflicts worldwide calls for innovative solutions. In the Netherlands, neuroscientists and psychobiologists are joining forces with specialists from the security sector, education, healthcare, and social organizations in the CONTEXT project. Their goal: to better prepare those who frequently find themselves in conflict situations – such as at-risk youth and police – to effectively avoid escalations.
The CONTEXT project is developing personalized biofeedback methods that train individuals to recognize the -often unconscious signals- of stress in their own bodies. By improving this early recognition in daily life with the help of smartwatches and linking it to concrete emotion control techniques that can be trained in stressful contexts using virtual reality, the project enables target groups to react more adequately in stressful moments and prevents escalations.