Vakgroep Menselijke fysiologie (MFYS)

Jeroen van Cutsem is a last year-PhD student at the Research Group Human Physiology, Faculty LK at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. His research focuses on the various forms of fatigue (e.g. mental and physical fatigue) and the interaction between these different forms of fatigue. Within his project, specific attention was paid to the psychophysiological mechanisms behind the impaired physical performance in a mentally fatigued state.

People who experience acute mental fatigue see their cognitive performance deteriorate, they react less quickly and make more mistakes. Recently, this form of fatigue has also been shown to impair physical performance. This impaired physical performance seems to arise from the higher perceived exertion experienced during physical activity in a mentally fatigued state. However, the exact mediating mechanisms are not known yet and that is what Jeroen Van Cutsem's PhD focussed upon.

In his PhD trajectory, Jeroen published a systematic review and 4 experimental studies on the topic of mental fatigue and physical performance and he already gave several national and international presentations at sports-related conferences (ECSS, Vereniging van Kinesiologie, ...). In 2014 he won the Gaston Beunen-prize for best oral presentation at the congress of Vereniging van Kinesiologie.