Lecturer Beorn Nijenhuis received his doctorate from the University of Groningen on Wednesday 13 June for his research into "Skaters' cramp", a movement disorder that has cost some top skaters their careers. Nijenhuis found that swabber foot is a case of "task-specific dystonia", a movement disorder that results from abnormal brain activity and mainly affects specialists in whom that movement is part of their regular repertoire, among which, apart from athletes, also musicians.
Beorn Nijenhuis is a neuroscientist and CvA-teacher, who teaches the electives "Your Brain on Exercise" (Ba) and "Patterns of Performance: The Neuroscience of Improving Experts" (Ma), among others.