Academic interests
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The neuroscience of reward and anhedonia
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Motivation and hedonic experience of food, music, social cues and perception.
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Value-based decision-making
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The human opioid system (including the endorphin system)
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Factors influencing pain, stress and affect
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Effects of long-term treatment with opioid drugs in patients with chronic pain and opioid use disorder, and children prenatally exposed to opioids
I have a background in cognitive psychology, neuroscience with a specialization in judgement and decision making, psychopharmacology and reward processes. Throughout my MA, PhD and first postdoc I have been working on projects designed to investigate the role of the µ-opioid receptor system for reward experience and behavior in healthy humans as well as in patients in medication assisted treatment for opioid dependence. I have been part of Leknes Affective Brain lab (LABlab, PI Siri Leknes) for ten years, and am currently a postdoctoral researcher on an EU funded research project (ERC, OPIOIDREWARD) where we investigate the effects of psychological and physiological state effects on subjective effects, reward behavior and abuse liability of opioids. In addition to observational studies in different patient groups, we typically use experimental psychopharmacological designs, with and without functional neuroimaging (fMRI).
I’m a national coordinator for a work package of the NaltRec Study (Long-acting naltrexone for opioid addiction: the importance of mental, physical and societal factors for sustained abstinence and recovery; PI: Lars Tanum). In this study we assess the effects of long-acting opioid blockade with naltrexone on sensitivity to stress, reward and pain.
Courses taught
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PSYC2230 Cognitive Neuroscience
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PSY4320 Research methods in cognitive neuroscience Part II
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PSY4304 Current Issues in Cognitive neuroscience
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PSYC3102 Research project: social psychology
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PSYC2207 Cognitive Neuroscience II