The Bingel Laboratory
Prof. Dr. Ulrike Bingel and her research group focuses on the interaction between pain and cognitive processes. We have a longstanding expertise in investigating the CNS mechanisms underlying nociception, pain, and pain modulation in health and disease. In our research, we use behavioural paradigms, pharmacological modulations, as well as functional and structural brain imaging. Being particularly intrigued by the reciprocal effects of pain and cognition, we have a strong focus on translational questions such as the role of expectations and prior experiences on analgesic treatment outcomes. Our interdisciplinary research group comprises neurologists, neuroscientists, psychologists, biologists, and computer scientists and is based at the Department of Neurology at the University Medicine Essen. We are affiliated with the Erwin-L-Hahn institute for magnetic resonance imaging and the Translational Pain Research Department of the University Pain Center. Our research is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.
Recent News
Lab members surrounding Jialin Li published a new preprint on BioRxiv as part of the SFB 1280. Appetitive and aversive conditioning are both fundamental to adaptive behaviour, yet there remains limited understanding of how they differ on the behavioural and neural level. We investigated the two processes during acquisition and extinction using functional magnetic resonance imaging and behavioural measures. The results suggest that while appetitive and aversive learning share activation in regions involved in sensory processing (occipital lobe) and learning (vmPFC), aversive learning uniquely engages areas promoting rapid acquisition (mediodorsal thalamus and locus coeruleus) and cautious unlearning, in line with the notion of a ‘better-safe-than-sorry’ strategy. Read more about the work here.
In a new preregistered study, we set out to compare the magnitude and duration of placebo versus nocebo effects in healthy volunteers, and also to examine the different factors contributing to these effects. Despite the clinical relevance of these effects, the question of how placebo and nocebo effects differ in strength and duration remains largely unexplored.
In this preregistered study, we used a within-subject design in 104 healthy to investigate and directly compare the magnitude and persistence of placebo and nocebo effects on experimental pain. Effects were assessed immediately after their induction through verbal instructions and conditioning and at a one-week follow-up.
Significant placebo and nocebo effects were detected on day 1 and day 8, but nocebo effects were stronger on both test days. Sustained effects after one week were primarily predicted by individuals’ experienced effects on day 1. Our findings underscore the enduring nature of placebo and nocebo effects in pain, with nocebo responses demonstrating consistently greater strength, which is consistent with an evolutionarily advantageous ‘better-safe-than-sorry’ strategy. These insights emphasise the significant impact of nocebo effects and stress the need to prioritise efforts to mitigate them in clinical practice.
Last week, we invited six kids and adolescents to the Bingellab for a day of research and pain experiments! First, PhD and medical doctoral students presented what they are working on as researchers and what a typical day in their life looks like. Then, some activities followed, for example, “Guess which fruit was measured in the MRI scanner?” They could also try out different types of pain induction like electrical, heat or cold water pain, and got some information what transcranial magnetic stimulation is for. Lastly, the rubberhand illusion and making brain helmets is always fun! We definitely enjoyed the day and hope the girls and boys did too!
Performing high-quality research can be challenging, especially for early career researchers! Helena Hartmann and her colleagues created a solution: ARIADNE – a living and interactive resource navigator that helps to use and search a dynamically updated database of resources. In the corresponding published tutorial in the journal Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, they guide researchers through a standard research project using ARIADNE along the way. Read the paper here and try out the tool here!
