Valerie Jentsch

Dr. rer. nat. 

Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology

Methods and research interests

My research focuses on how acute stress influences cognitive and emotional processes in humans. I combine experimental stress paradigms, physical exercise interventions, and pharmacological approaches with neuroendocrine, physiological, and neuroimaging methods, as well as eye-tracking and pupillometry.

A central focus of my work is the bidirectional relationship between stress and cognitive emotion regulation. In particular, I examine how acute stress alters emotion regulation processes, but also how individual differences in emotion regulation capabilities, in turn, shape neuroendocrine, physiological, and affective responses to stress.

My second line of research focuses on the neuroendocrine modulation of fear and extinction memories. In this context, I investigate whether stress hormone manipulations can be harnessed to enhance extinction learning and optimize exposure-based psychotherapeutic interventions for the treatment of anxiety disorders

Overall, my goal is to advance an integrative understanding of the neuroendocrine mechanisms underlying stress-related changes in cognition and emotion. 

Curriculum Vitae

• since 2026 Postdoc, Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology, Institute for Medical Psychology and Translational Neuroscience, Ruhr University Bochum
• since 2021 Principal Investigator, DFG-Collaborative Research Center       SFB 1280 “Extinction Learning“, Project A09
• 2017-2026 Postdoc, Cognitive Psychology, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Ruhr University Bochum
• 03/2024-04/2025 and 04/2020-05/2021 Maternity and Parental Leave
• 05/2017 Dr. rer. nat., Faculty of Psychology, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Ruhr University Bochum (summa cum laude)
• 2013-2017 Research Assistant/PhD Student, Cognitive Psychology, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Ruhr University Bochum
• 2010-2013 M.Sc. Clinical Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum
• 2012 Study abroad, University Barcelona, Spain

• 2007-2010 B.Sc. Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum

  Awards, Grants and Scholarships

• 2026 DFG Collaborative Research Center SFB 1280 “Extinction Learning“, Subproject A09: „Improving stress hormone effects on extinction learning and retrieval” (joined proposal with Oliver T. Wolf, Christian J. Merz)
• 2024 DFG Research Grant “Neuroendocrine modulation of cognitive emotion regulation – Exploring the role of stress system dominance”
• 2024 Poster Prize of the German Society for Psychophysiology and its Application (DGPA) at the 49th Annual Conference “Psychology and the Brain“, Hamburg  
• 2021 DFG Collaborative Research Center SFB 1280 “Extinction Learning“, Subproject A09: “Stress hormone effects on contextualized extinction memories” (joined proposal with Oliver T. Wolf, Christian J. Merz)
• 2018 DAAD Travel Grant for Participation at the 48th Annual Conference of the “Society for Neuroscience” (SfN), San Diego, USA
• 2018 Research Grant of the Exploratory Treasure of the SFB 1280 “Extinction Learning” for the Project „The impact of acute exercise on the consolidation of fear extinction memory”

• 2016 DAAD Travel Grant for Participation at the 46th Annual Conference of the “International Society for Psychoneuroendocrinology” (ISPNE), Miami, USA

  Peer Review

• Reviewer for > 20 international peer-reviewed Journals  

• Reviewer for national and international Research Funding Programs (German Research Foundation (DFG), Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF))

  Membership in Professional Societies

• German Psychological Society (DGPs), Section Biological Psychology and Neuropsychology
• Interest Group Open and Reproducible Research in the Section Biological Psychology and Neuropsychology (IGOR)
• German Society for Psychophysiology and its Applications (DGPA)

• International Society of Psychoneuroendocrinology (ISPNE)

  University Governance & Institutional Service 

• since 2023 Member of the Interest Group for Open and Reproducible Research (IGOR), Section Biological Psychology and Neuropsychology, German Psychological Society (DGPs)
• 2020-2023 Member of the “Gender Equality” Working Group, Faculty of Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum
• 2017-2024 Representative of the Early Career Researchers and Member of the Executive Board of the Collaborative Research Center SFB 1280 “Extinction Learning”
• 2017-2023 Member of the Faculty Council for Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum

• Seit 2017 Reviewer for the Local Ethics Committee, Faculty of Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum

  Teaching and Supervision

• >10 years of teaching experience in the bachelor’s and master’s programs in Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience, Clinical Psychology, and Cognitive Science at the Faculty of Psychology, Ruhr University Bochum
• >20 seminars and lectures on various topics in biological and cognitive psychology (e.g., language, thinking, problem-solving, perception, attention, memory, stress, emotions, and emotion regulation)
  Practice-oriented seminars designed to teach methodological and experimental psychology skills (e.g., project-based seminar to prepare for the bachelor’s thesis)
• Supervision of doctoral (3), master’s (9), and bachelor’s theses (11)