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Nicolas Leenaerts @nicolasleenaerts.bsky.social · 7d

“You’ll never get the award,” said my imposter syndrome. Well, look at me now!

Many thanks to the Royal Academy of Medicine for awarding the Prof. Dr. Bernard Sabbe Award in Clinical Psychiatry to my PhD thesis.

Read my thesis here: doi.org/10.13140/RG....

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Reposted by Nicolas Leenaerts

Benjamin Kunc @benjaminkunc.bsky.social · 11d

Are you an ESM item measuring the quality of social experiences looking for validation? 👀

Because if you are, I've got some bad news for you. Our new preprint is out: osf.io/preprints/ps...

@gudruneisele.bsky.social @ginettelafit.bsky.social @lisapeeters.bsky.social @oliviajkirtley.bsky.social

OSF

osf.io

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Nicolas Leenaerts @nicolasleenaerts.bsky.social · 16d

Want a taste of Flemish culture? A mayor secretly used municipal facilities to meet his girlfriend without paying the rental fee. A deontological commission ruled he can stay in office, but he must pay the rent owed.

vrtnws.be/p.Bl8P0Nao3

Burgemeester van Zulte moet 3.525 euro huurgeld betalen omdat hij gemeentelijke zalen gebruikte voor afspraakjes met vriendin | VRT NWS: nieuws

De burgemeester van Zulte, Simon Lagrange (Open Zulte), moet 3.525 euro betalen, omdat hij bijna 50 keer stiekem de gemeentelijke zalen gebruikte voor afspraakjes met zijn nieuwe vriendin. Maar ze bet...

vrtnws.be

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Nicolas Leenaerts @nicolasleenaerts.bsky.social · 19d

What’s a psychiatrist doing in computer science?

It’s a question I keep getting in the U.S. Luckily, the answer is clear to me: AI holds enormous potential for mental health, but it’s up to us, as clinicians, to guide it in the right direction.

Read more in my latest blog post!

What’s a psychiatrist doing in computer science? - English

At yet another welcome event at Harvard, I get ready to repeat my introduction again. In short: I am a psychiatrist from Belgium, and I will be working for a year as a postdoctoral researcher in compu...

nicolasleenaerts.github.io

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Nicolas Leenaerts @nicolasleenaerts.bsky.social · 20d

It is imperative that all students working with me watch a compilation of funny vine video's.

Otherwise you won't understand my memes 😭

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Nicolas Leenaerts @nicolasleenaerts.bsky.social · 21d

Interesting. Simple methods for the win!

Nicolas Leenaerts @nicolasleenaerts.bsky.social · 28d

Final paper of my PhD got published! 🥳

We investigated whether stress increases the desire for immediately available food or alcohol in patients with bulimia nervosa or alcohol use disorder.

Check it out here:
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

The effect of stress on delay discounting in female patients with early-onset bulimia nervosa and alcohol use disorder: functional magnetic resonance imaging study | BJPsych Open | Cambridge Core

The effect of stress on delay discounting in female patients with early-onset bulimia nervosa and alcohol use disorder: functional magnetic resonance imaging study - Volume 11 Issue 5

www.cambridge.org

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Nicolas Leenaerts @nicolasleenaerts.bsky.social · Sep 10

Thanks! Very interesting!

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Nicolas Leenaerts @nicolasleenaerts.bsky.social · Sep 8

I love reinforcement learning, but the most annoying part about reading RL papers is the variety in nomenclature and how some authors seem to go out of their way to use specific terms and symbols in their papers...

Oh and everybody needs to give a new fancy name to their algorithm...

Nicolas Leenaerts @nicolasleenaerts.bsky.social · Sep 8

Really interested work! I'm now focusing on RL to treat disordered eating in daily life, and this raises some questions. I did miss a section on fMRI preprocessing in the manuscript?

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Reposted by Nicolas Leenaerts

Aaron Fisher @aaronjfisher.bsky.social · Sep 1

Paper accepted today in the Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science, "Establishing minimally sufficient conditions reduces the complexity of symptom presentations in DSM internalizing disorders." A quick thread, below. (link is to a PDF on the paper's OSF page) 1/15
osf.io/fxdm6

OSF

osf.io

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Nicolas Leenaerts @nicolasleenaerts.bsky.social · Aug 29

It was amazing, even though the Red Sox did loose in the end...

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Nicolas Leenaerts @nicolasleenaerts.bsky.social · Aug 29

Never thought I'd be working with Lagrangian multipliers, but here I am!

Nicolas Leenaerts @nicolasleenaerts.bsky.social · Aug 24

I have fully embraced being over thirty. There was a fresh salmon promo in the grocery store and I was ecstatic ☺️.

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Reposted by Nicolas Leenaerts

Society for Ambulatory Assessment 2026 Conference @saa2026.bsky.social · Aug 22

#SAA2026 key dates:
📭 abstract submissions will open 1 December 2025 and close 16 January 2026
📨 acceptance notifications will be sent at the end of March 2026 - registration will open at the same time
🦜 early bird registration will close at the end of April 2026

univie.eventsair.com/saa2026/

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Nicolas Leenaerts @nicolasleenaerts.bsky.social · Aug 14

Just spent way too long coding an R function that makes violin plots of SHAP values, where the violins are color-graded based on the original feature’s value at each SHAP value. My hate for the standard bee plots drove me to this ...

Reach out to get the code now or wait until the publication ;)

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Nicolas Leenaerts @nicolasleenaerts.bsky.social · Aug 13

Updated my website! You can now read about my current research project, where I will use off-policy methods for reinforcement learning to identify how we can help people manage their craving in daily life!

The Github repo's on prediction models are also still available!

nicolasleenaerts.github.io

Home

nicolasleenaerts.github.io

Nicolas Leenaerts @nicolasleenaerts.bsky.social · Aug 12

Getting the proofs of your article is like getting a present 😍

And the gift is discovering how many changes they made that were wrong and you now have to spend time to correct 🤯

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Nicolas Leenaerts @nicolasleenaerts.bsky.social · Aug 6

Thanks for sharing this!!!

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Nicolas Leenaerts @nicolasleenaerts.bsky.social · Aug 2

So we meet again.

Loved to eat the orange chicken and the honey-walnut shrimp again.

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Nicolas Leenaerts @nicolasleenaerts.bsky.social · Aug 1

Never thought I'd say these words, but it's my first day at Harvard! Looking forward to delve into reinforcement learning for JITAIs.

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Nicolas Leenaerts @nicolasleenaerts.bsky.social · Jul 31

Today is the day that I can finally call myself a psychiatrist! After 14 years, my residency has come to an end, and what a journey it was. I feel so grateful for all the people who have supported me!

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Nicolas Leenaerts @nicolasleenaerts.bsky.social · Jul 9

Just finished my final time being on call before I graduate!

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Nicolas Leenaerts @nicolasleenaerts.bsky.social · Jul 8

Huge thanks to Tommy Broeders, Menno Schoonheim, and Christiaan Vinkers for their collaboration on this work.

Nicolas Leenaerts @nicolasleenaerts.bsky.social · Jul 8

Patients with AUD showed no difference in either promiscuity or flexibility.

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