Mathijs Raemaekers obtained his PhD in 2006 with René Kahn and Nick Ramsey, with a thesis on abnormalities in brain activation during eye movements in schizophrenia. Subsequently, he became a postdoc at the neurobiology group of Richard van Wezel of the faculty of Biology of Utrecht University, where he conducted experiments on control over conscious visual perception and directional biases during motion perception in primary visual cortical areas. For continuing the latter experiments in the group of Nick Ramsey at the UMC Utrecht, he was awarded a VENI grant. In collaboration with Wouter Schellekens, he successfully the nature and purpose of the directional motion biases in visual cortex.

At the UMC he also established various lines of research, mostly using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Using this technique he investigated amongst others functional reorganization after stroke in motor and visual cortex, resting state activity in visual cortex, and topological asymmetry between the hemispheres. In addition he has developed statistical approaches for estimating reliability of fMRI measurements. He is now supervising fMRI research in several Ph.D. projects in addition to his function as contact person between the BCRM and the Imaging division.

Research line

fMRI, Stroke, BCI, Vision, Resting state

1: Raemaekers, M., Bergsma, D.P., van Wezel, R.J., van der Wildt, G.J., van den Berg, A.V., 2011. Effects of vision restoration training on early visual cortex in patients with cerebral blindness investigated with functional magnetic resonance imaging. J.Neurophysiol. 105, 872-882
2: Raemaekers, M., du, P.S., Ramsey, N.F., Weusten, J.M., Vink, M., 2012. Test-retest variability underlying fMRI measurements. Neuroimage. 60, 717-727
3: Raemaekers, M., Lankheet, M.J., Moorman, S., Kourtzi, Z., van Wezel, R.J., 2009. Directional anisotropy of motion responses in retinotopic cortex. Hum.Brain Mapp. 30, 3970-3980
4: Raemaekers, M., Schellekens, W., van Wezel, R.J., Petridou, N., Kristo, G., Ramsey, N.F., 2014. Patterns of resting state connectivity in human primary visual cortical areas: a 7T fMRI study. Neuroimage. 84, 911-921
5: Schellekens, W., van Wezel, R.J., Petridou, N., Ramsey, N.F., Raemaekers, M., 2014. Predictive coding for motion stimuli in human early visual cortex. Brain Struct.Funct

1: VENI NWO ALW
2: NCU Seed grant