Affective Neuroscience Symposium

12:30 – 13:00

Irene Tracey: Pain and emotions

Professor Irene Tracey is Head of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences and Professor of Anaesthetic Science. As head of the FMRIB Pain Analgesia-Anaesthesia Imaging Neuroscience Group, her research aims to understand pain perception, analgesia and altered states of consciousness through advanced neuroimaging.

13:00 – 13:30

Chantal Berna: Cognitive and affective modulations of clinical and experimental pain

Chantal Berna works at the Pain Centre of Lausanne University Hospital as a researcher and clinician (internal medicine). A pain physician with profound insight into the psychology of both experimental and clinical pain, Berna’s research interests span from cognitive and affective modulations of pain, non-pharmacological treatments such as hypnosis, to the therapeutic encounter.

13:45 - 14:15

Håkan Olausson: Listening to single peripheral neurons in humans: slow touch and fast pain

Håkan Olausson is Professor of Clinical and Experimental Medicine at Linköping University. Olausson is among the world’s foremost experts on the CT afferent system, from the study of peripheral receptors to the system’s effect on brain and behaviour. His research also covers nociception and pain, pain-touch interactions, and how affective touch can be used as a tool to study brain processing in psychiatric disorders.

14:15 – 14:45

Johann Wessberg: Microstimulation of single peripheral neurons in humans

Johan Wessberg is Professor of Physiology at the University of Gothenburg. Wessberg is an expert in the use of microneurography, where a thin electrode is inserted through the skin in awake human subjects to record and also stimulate single neurons. Wessberg has published seminal work on both touch and motor neurophysiology in primates and humans.

15:00 - 15:30

Marie Eikemo & Guro Løseth: The role of the opioid system in the healthy human brain

Marie Eikemo and Guro Løseth are key members of the Leknes Affective Brain lab. Their research uses cognitive, social and affective neuroscience methods to probe the hedonic brain, with a focus on the opioid system. In LAB lab, we believe that understanding how the healthy human brain encodes subjective and objective value is crucial for improving treatment in areas such as substance use disorder and chronic pain. As such, our work is translational, aiming to fill the knowledge gap between rodent models and patient studies.