The Appetitive Side of Placebo Effects in Brain and Behavior

Description

This webinar is being produced through a collaboration of the IASP's Pain and Placebo Special Interest Group and the University of Maryland, Baltimore, USA - in particular - the University of Maryland School of Nursing's Placebo Beyond Opinions Center. Both groups are aligned on advancing unbiased knowledge of placebo effects by promoting interdisciplinary investigation of the placebo phenomenon and nurturing placebo research.

THIS WEBINAR IS UNIQUE IN THAT IT IS BEING HOSTED (BOTH IN-PERSON AND VIRTUALLY) BY THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. AS SUCH, A LINK TO THE WEBINAR WILL NOT BE DISTRIBUTED UPON REGISTRATION - RATHER - A LINK TO THE WEBINAR WILL BE DISTRIBUTED TO REGISTRANTS VIA EMAIL BOTH 24 HOURS AND 1 HOUR PRIOR TO THE WEBINAR. FOR ANY QUESTIONS, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO EMAIL GREGORY CARBONETTI AT GREGORY.CARBONETTI@IASP-PAIN.ORG

The IASP defines pain as "an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, actual or potential tissue damage" to better articulate the biopsychosocial dimensions of this phenomenon. While our understanding of pain has greatly evolved over the past decades, there are still fundamental questions that need to be addressed, including its psychological components.

Suggestions about hunger can generate placebo effects on hunger experiences but the underlying neurocognitive mechanisms are still unknown. Despite the ample evidence for appetitive placebo effects on behavior, there is still no direct empirical evidence for when, where, or how in the brain a placebo intervention - that combines the administration of an inactive substance with a verbal suggestion about its effectiveness - influences the experience of appetitive interoceptive outcomes (such as hunger and associated economic behavior). Join us as we learn how placebo intervention can affect hunger-addressing economic behavior.

Participants include:
-- Liane Schmidt, PhD, INSERM, France
-- Luana Colloca, MD, PhD, University of Maryland School of Nursing, USA (host)

Contributors

Liane Schmidt, PhD

Liane is a faculty member at INSERM in Paris, France. She achieved her PhD at the Pierre et Marie Curie Paris VI University in France for her investigation of the neuropsychological determinants of incentive motivation in humans. In her current work, she investigates how beliefs about oneself, the world, and the future bias decision-making and motivation in health, depression, or obesity. Liane’s writings have been published in international peer reviewed journals such as Science, the Journal of Neuroscience, Nature Neuroscience and Psychological Science. You can visit her faculty information page to learn more here.
Luana Colloca, MD, PhD

Luana is a MPower Distinguished professor at University of Maryland, School of Nursing, Baltimore, Director of the TL1 program, Chair of the Pain and Placebo Special Interest Group for the International Association for Study of Pain (IASP) Society and the Treasurer for the Society for Interdisciplinary Studies of Placebo (SIPS). Colloca holds an MD, a PhD in Neuroscience and a master in Bioethics. She completed a post-doc training at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden and a senior research fellowship at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda. Prof. Colloca received several prestigious awards such as the IASP Wall Patrick Award for basic research on pain mechanisms. Colloca leads an NIH-funded research portfolio on endogenous pain modulation including placebo/nocebo effects and other nonpharmacological interventions such as virtual reality. Colloca and her teamhave been published in top-ranked journals including JAMA, NEJM, Biological Psychiatry, Pain, and Lancet Neurology among others.