Tor Wager

ICS Faculty Alum Tor Wager Quoted in AARP Article, "Your Best Bet for Managing Chronic Pain May Be a Well-Coordinated Strategy"

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 23:50:26 +0000

ICS Faculty Alum Tor Wager Quoted in AARP Article, "Your Best Bet for Managing Chronic Pain May Be a Well-Coordinated Strategy" Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 07/11/2024 - 17:50

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Tor Wager and Leonie Koban's AV��ʪ in the News: Broken Hearts and the Placebo Effect

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Feb 2019 07:00:00 +0000

Tor Wager and Leonie Koban's AV��ʪ in the News: Broken Hearts and the Placebo Effect Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/14/2019 - 00:00

Expectations of relief can have powerful effects on emotional pain, according to Koban, a postdoctoral research associate.

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Tor Wager Receives Wide Exposure for AV��ʪ on Self-reinforcing Expectancy Effects on Pain

Anonymous — Wed, 28 Nov 2018 21:17:11 +0000

Tor Wager Receives Wide Exposure for AV��ʪ on Self-reinforcing Expectancy Effects on Pain Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 11/28/2018 - 14:17

"CU Boulder professor links brain's expectations and pain sensation" (Boulder Daily Camera)

"Pain can be a self-fulfilling prophecy - new brain imaging research shows that when we expect something to hurt it does, even if the stimulus isn't so painful." (Science Daily)

With the overuse of pain medication and the growing aging population in our communities, interest in the mechanisms and practical aspects of pain and pain management is high. Tor Wager led the publication of research that takes pain research that shows clear connections between psychology and neuroscience.

From the research abstract (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-018-0455-8): Beliefs and expectations often persist despite evidence to the contrary. Here we examine two potential mechanisms underlying such ‘self-reinforcing’ expectancy effects in the pain domain: modulation of perception and biased learning. In two experiments, cues previously associated with symbolic representations of high or low temperatures preceded painful heat. We examined trial-to-trial dynamics in participants’ expected pain, reported pain and brain activity. Subjective and neural pain responses assimilated towards cue-based expectations, and pain responses in turn predicted subsequent expectations, creating a positive dynamic feedback loop. Furthermore, we found evidence for a confirmation bias in learning: higher- and lower-than-expected pain triggered greater expectation updating for high- and low-pain cues, respectively. Individual differences in this bias were reflected in the updating of pain-anticipatory brain activity. Computational modelling provided converging evidence that expectations influence both perception and learning. Together, perceptual assimilation and biased learning promote self-reinforcing expectations, helping to explain why beliefs can be resistant to change.

Learn more at Science Daily and the Boulder Daily Camera.

From Science Daily to Nature: Human Behaviour and the Boulder Daily Camera, senior author Tor Wager's research on the effects of expectation of pain is garnering attention.

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Tor Wager in Neuron for AV��ʪ on "Imagining sounds is just as good as hearing them for removing negative associations." (Cell Press)

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 17:31:11 +0000

Tor Wager in Neuron for AV��ʪ on "Imagining sounds is just as good as hearing them for removing negative associations." (Cell Press) Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 11/21/2018 - 10:31

AV��ʪers at the University of Colorado Boulder and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai concluded "that deliberate imagination can attenuate reactions to threat through perceptual and associative learning mechanisms." in an article published in the journal Neuron

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CANLab Partners with cliexa® for Multidimensional Pain Tracking AV��ʪ

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Mar 2018 18:33:38 +0000

CANLab Partners with cliexa® for Multidimensional Pain Tracking AV��ʪ Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 03/09/2018 - 11:33

cliexa® Partners with the University of Colorado Boulder's Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Lab (CANLab) for Multidimensional Pain Tracking and Predictive Analytics AV��ʪ.

cliexa, Inc., which offers a suite of mobile platforms for chronic disease management, announces its collaboration with CU Boulder’s CANLab and Institute of Cognitive Science (ICS). cliexa will collaborate with CANLab’s team, headed by Professor Tor Wager, as they lead in multidimensional pain tracking and predictive analytics research.

CU Boulder jointly filed a provisional patent with cliexa for the multidimensional objective pain concept with CANLab. The CANLab focuses on identifying a particular pattern of brain activity, which is diagnostic of physical pain. cliexa-Ease’s mobile platform hosts the research concept and is being used to further develop CANLab’s existing pain studies. cliexa-Ease will deliver an exclusive pain assessment model, which, in collaboration with CU Boulder, anticipates commercialization by mid 2018.

Mehmet Kazgan, founder and CEO of cliexa, explains how they are excited about the partnership with Wager’s CANLab because of its “leading research studies for multidimensional pain tracking.” He also describes how “working with neuroscientists at University of Colorado Boulder is taking [the cliexa platform] to the next level of objectifying patient outputs with multiple reference points.”

Professor Wager highlights how the collaboration will “expand our ability to understand how emotion affects pain in daily life.” Dr. Pavel Goldstein, the scientific lead of the project, adds the partnership will provide both “an incredible opportunity to establish a platform for researching chronic pain conditions” and “important feedback to pain patients and their clinicians with unique information about patient health.”

http://www.cliexa.com/2018/03/cliexa-partners-institute-cognitive-science-university-colorado-boulder/

About Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Lab

Professor Tor Wager leads CANLab, which is housed by CU Boulder’s Institute of Cognitive Science (ICS) and the Psychology and Neuroscience Department. CANLab uses machine-learning to develop fMRI-based biomarkers for clinically relevant outcomes, such as pain. It subsequently tests how psychological factors influence these biomarkers. The lab also engages in collaborative, translational research, which incorporates brain systems-level analyses into the study of clinical disorders, including PTSD, depression, schizophrenia, and chronic pain.

Learn more about the CANLab at https://canlabweb.colorado.edu

About cliexa
The mobile platform technology developed by cliexa enables patients to track their chronic disease activity by quantifying symptoms using scientifically-proven and clinically-validated scoring models. cliexa delivers quantified disease activity and medication adherence through patient reported outcomes through real-time integration to electronic medical records, which streamline processes and increase efficiency in population health management.

Learn more about cliexa at www.cliexa.com

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Wager Lab Article Published through Nature Neuroscience!

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Feb 2018 18:54:02 +0000

Wager Lab Article Published through Nature Neuroscience! Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/22/2018 - 11:54

Check out Wager Lab's article on representations of pain in February's Nature Neuroscience!

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Tor Wager Interviewed in Tech Magazine

Anonymous — Tue, 31 Oct 2017 17:33:53 +0000

Tor Wager Interviewed in Tech Magazine Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/31/2017 - 11:33

ICS, Psychology and Neuroscience Professor Tor Wager was interviewed by Knowable Magazine for his research on the placebo effect.

"In early April, several hundred scientists converged in the Netherlands for the first-ever meeting of the Society for Interdisciplinary Placebo Studies. The topic drew psychologists, psychiatrists, physiologists, ethicists and neuroscientists, all enthusiastic about focusing a wider lens on a booming area of study: investigation of how beliefs, expectations and motivations can shape health. The well-documented, if often incidental, effects of placebos — drugs with no active ingredients, or other shams concocted to better measure another therapy’s effect — have triggered that boom"

Read more of the article: Rebranding Placebos

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Romantic Rejection – There’s a Placebo for That

Anonymous — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 21:47:47 +0000

Romantic Rejection – There’s a Placebo for That Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 04/25/2017 - 15:47

ICS Post Doc Dr. Leonie Koban and ICS Faculty Dr. Tor Wager recently published in the Journal of Neuroscience, Frontal-brainstem pathways mediating placebo effects on social rejection. The study is the first to measure placebos’ impact on emotional pain from romantic rejection, and has been covered in the local media:

When Love Hurts, a Placebo Can Help - CU Boulder Today
Placebos Can Help Mend a Broken Heart, CU Boulder Study Says - The Denver Post
Placebo Effect Can Help Heal a Broken Heart, CU Boulder Study Suggests - Denver 7 ABC
CU Boulder Study Shows Placebos Can Help Mend a Broken Heart - Denver 9 News NBC
Study: Placebo Can Help Heal a Broken Heart - Fox 31 Denver

Post Doc Dr. Leonie Koban

ICS's Leonie Koban and Tor Wager measure placebos’ impact on emotional pain from romantic rejection.

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Marina Lopez-Sola and Tor Wager Publish Work on Neural Signatures for Fibromyalgia

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Oct 2016 17:01:52 +0000

Marina Lopez-Sola and Tor Wager Publish Work on Neural Signatures for Fibromyalgia Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/17/2016 - 11:01

Exciting work was recently published in the journal PAIN by ICS Post-Doc Dr. Marina Lopez-Sola and ICS Faculty Dr. Tor Wager on fibromyalgia and neural signatures.

"University of Colorado Boulder researchers have discovered a brain signature that identifies fibromyalgia sufferers with 93 percent accuracy, a potential breakthrough for future clinical diagnosis and treatment of the highly prevalent condition."

Read more about Dr. Lopez-Sola and Dr. Wagers work at CU Boulder Today.

Exciting work by ICS Post-Doc Dr. Marina Lopez-Sola and ICS Faculty Dr. Tor Wager on fibromyalgia and neural signatures.

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