The Experience of Pain and Emotion: Meeting of Body, Brain, and Mind

This webinar - held on 15 June 2023 -  was produced through a collaboration of the IASP's Pain and Placebo Special Interest Group and the University of Maryland, Baltimore, USA - in particular - the University of Maryland School of Nursing's Placebo Beyond Opinions Center and the University of Maryland's Center to Advance Chronic Pain Research. All three groups are aligned on advancing unbiased knowledge of placebo effects by promoting interdisciplinary investigation of the placebo phenomenon and nurturing placebo research.                                                      .        

Feelings, emotions, and moods are at the core of human existence. They reflect internal affective states that continuously interact with the external world, which shape thoughts and motivate behaviors. Furthermore, these affective states are adaptive - capable of boosting survival and social connectedness. However, they can also negatively impact health and well-being.

This webinar explored the conceptual, mechanistic, and clinical relationships between pain and emotion - highlighting the value of bridging the pain and emotion communities - and offered opportunities for new research. To better understand these phenomena, they were discussed through the lens of cognitive neuroscience, experimental psychology, and health informatics, while integrating perspectives from emotion science, social psychology, and pain medicine.
                                                                                            
Participants included:

• Gadi Gilam, PhD, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel (Dr. Gilam's website)
• Luana Colloca, MD, PhD, University of Maryland School of Nursing, USA (host)