Alina Kulka is studying human medicine at the University of Duisburg-Essen. As a medical student she will start her dissertation within the COLA project in the Bingel lab. She will be part of our experimental fMRI study to research about different mechanisms of pain perception.

Although the positive effects of placebos are well known, it is difficult to harness these benefits in clinical practice because deceiving patients about the true nature of their treatment raises legal and ethical concerns. Surprisingly however, placebos can also work if people know they are taking “just” a placebo. But would people be willing to take these “honest”, so called open-label placebos? In their recently published study, Diana Müßgens and colleagues investigated how open people would be to taking such open-label placebos. In an online survey of 532 respondents, they found that most people were willing to try placebos, especially if they were prescribed in addition to an ongoing treatment. The most convincing arguments for trying placebos were positive results from research studies and recommendations by physicians. Therefore, they argue, it is well worth to further explore the use of open-label placebos and to optimize the ways in which researchers and clinicians communicate this knowledge.

Our letter “Worth a try – A survey on the general acceptance of open-label placebos” is now published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research.

We are pleased to announce a joint workshop and lecture series “Equity and Female Opportunities in Academia” in 2023 from the Collaborative Research Centres 289 and 296. With this workshop/talk series, we want to offer to all members of Treatment Expectation and LOCOTACT the opportunity to get deeper into various topics regarding diversity in academia and to take advantage of one-on-one coaching sessions. Relevant topics such as biases in recruitment processes, appreciative communication, visibility of female scientists, as well as gender equality aspects in politics, management and personnel selection will be highlighted.

The new program of our webinar series for the first half of 2023. We are delighted to have Keith Petrie (University of Auckland), Irving Kirsch (Harvard Medical School), Fabrizio Benedetti (University of Turin), and Andrea Evers (Leiden University) as invited guest speakers. Each session will begin with a short data blitz or study impulse by one of our early career researchers. Please note that the talk of Keith Petrie will be in the morning because of the time shift.

We are looking a motivated medical doctoral student to join our research group and write their medical doctoral thesis within an ongoing project. More infos (in German) on the flyer above.

Today four of our PhD and medical doctoral students (from left to right: Lea Busch, Jaspreed Kaur, Elif Buse Caliskan and Linda Ludwig) are presenting their work at the Tag der Forschung of the University Medicine Essen, and some of our postdocs are acting as reviewers & evaluating other posters. Good luck to all for their presentations and fingers crossed for the poster prizes! More information about the Forschungstag can be found here.

The Early Career Researcher (ECR) Summer School, organized by the CRC/TRR 289 “Treatment Expectation” and preceding and connected to SIPS 2023 in Duisburg, Germany, combines theoretical lectures with active “hands-on” workshops and networking opportunities.

Alongside subject-specific basics of placebo and nocebo effects, the program will focus on practical skills such as statistics (Bayesian analysis), as well as meta-scientific skills such as open science, science communication and online presence as a scientist (e.g., social media, own website). In addition, a final discussion session will provide a framework to share issues and challenges in one’s own research, both with peers and more experienced scientists. In this way, the summerschool will prepare the participants in the best possible way for participation in the SIPS and for their own scientific careers. Social events, e.g. a planned pub quiz, in the evening will round off the program and invite people to get to know each other.

In case of a successful application, the summer school is free of charge, and the application is separate from registration to the SIPS conference.

More information can be found here.

Three early career researchers from the Department of Neurology at the University Medical Center Essen received awards for pain research. 

The three innovative projects focus on expectancy and learning mechanisms in the perception and processing of pain, both in healthy individuals and in patients. Congratulations to Frederik Schlitt for the 2nd prize in the category Clinical Research on his work in pain-related learning mechanisms in patients with chronic back pain. Dr. Laura Ricarda Lanters accepted the 2nd prize in the Basic Research category for her work on the specificity of conditioned nocebo effects in visceral interoceptive pain. The prizes were awarded by the German Pain Society and the donor Grünenthal GmbH. Livia Asan can be excited the 1st place of the Young Investigator Award for Pain. She wants to investigate how adverse effects after lumbar puncture can be avoided.

“We are very proud that this year scientists from the University Medical Center Essen were represented in every category of the highest award for pain research in Germany. Their work confirms the success of the interdisciplinary, cross-project collaboration in the Translational Pain Research Unit at the Center for Translational Neuro- and Behavioral Sciences,” said Prof. Ulrike Bingel, head of the Center for University Pain Medicine and spokesperson of the SFB/TRR 289 Treatment Expectation.

More information on the three awardees here.

How long does the positive effect of a three-week treatment with open-label placebos (OLP) last in chronic back pain? This research question was posed by the team led by Dr. Julian Kleine Borgmann and Prof. Ulrike Bingel from the Center for Translational Neuro- and Behavioral Sciences at the University Hospital Essen, where they started a three-year follow-up study. The results have now been published as a research paper in the journal PAIN and can be read here. After three years, the effect was no longer detectable in terms of pain intensity, movement restrictions and mood. Read more about the study here!