Katja Wiech
My research focuses on the influence of beliefs on the perception of pain. These beliefs can be related to various aspects – pain itself, one’s ability to cope with it or conditions that can influence the two. A prime example of this influence is placebo analgesia, i.e. pain reduction following sham treatment that is induced by the expectation of pain relief.
Although the influence of beliefs on pain has been known for a long time, surprisingly little is known about its underlying mechanisms in the brain. Insights into the neural basis of this influence could aid in exploiting this powerful mechanism in a systematic way to open up new avenues for the prevention and treatment of pain, but also for a wider range of chronic health conditions, for which pain can be seen as a prototype.
In my research I use a multi-methods approach combining different non-invasive neuroimaging techniques including functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with behavioral and autonomic measures. In previous studies I have shown that beliefs can engage powerful brain mechanisms that can aggravate as well as alleviate pain. At present, I aim to characterize the process that integrates beliefs with incoming sensory information and the failure of optimal integration in biased perception. With my background in Experimental and Clinical Psychology I seeks to translate my basic research into clinical pain to make the findings available to the prevention and treatment of chronic pain.
Key publications
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Flexible Cerebral Connectivity Patterns Subserve Contextual Modulations of Pain
Journal article
Ploner M. et al, (2011), Cerebral Cortex, 21, 719 - 726
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The Effect of Treatment Expectation on Drug Efficacy: Imaging the Analgesic Benefit of the Opioid Remifentanil
Journal article
Bingel U. et al, (2011), Science Translational Medicine, 3, 70ra14 - 70ra14
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Prestimulus functional connectivity determines pain perception in humans
Journal article
Ploner M. et al, (2010), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107, 355 - 360
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Anterior Insula Integrates Information about Salience into Perceptual Decisions about Pain
Journal article
Wiech K. et al, (2010), Journal of Neuroscience, 30, 16324 - 16331
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An fMRI study measuring analgesia enhanced by religion as a belief system
Journal article
Wiech K. et al, (2008), Pain, 139, 467 - 476
Recent publications
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Reduction of aversive learning rates in Pavlovian conditioning by angiotensin II antagonist losartan
Preprint
Zika O. et al, (2023)
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Same but different: how agency modulates pain perception
Other
Wiech K., (2023), Trends in Cognitive Sciences
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Hippocampus mediates nocebo impairment of opioid analgesia through changes in functional connectivity.
Journal article
Bingel U. et al, (2022), Eur J Neurosci
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Individual treatment expectations predict clinical outcome after lumbar injections against low back pain.
Journal article
Müller-Schrader M. et al, (2022), Pain
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Trait anxiety is associated with hidden state inference during aversive reversal learning
Preprint
Zika O. et al, (2022)