Kristof Vandael
Papers
6
Total Citations
47
H-Index
5
About
Kristof Vandael investigates the psychological and sensorimotor mechanisms underlying chronic pain disability, with a focus on pain-related avoidance behavior and its generalization. His major contributions include developing the robotic arm-reaching paradigm, an ecologically valid experimental tool that captures costly avoidance in real-time movement, and demonstrating how this avoidance can spread to safe contexts—a key process in chronic pain maintenance. His work has shown that subclinical anxiety amplifies this maladaptive generalization, and that poorer proprioceptive accuracy is linked to overprotective avoidance. With over 47 citations across his most-cited papers, Vandael’s research bridges experimental psychopathology and motor control, offering novel insights into why some individuals transition from acute to chronic pain. His 2021 study on the boundary conditions of avoidance generalization is particularly influential, while his proprioceptive assessment tasks advance the measurement of sensorimotor integration. Vandael’s work is essential reading for students and researchers interested in the intersection of fear learning, movement behavior, and chronic pain.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
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