Professor of neuroscientific psychology, visiting professor abroad, at, e.g., Harvard Medical School, USA.

Research focus: Psychological and neurobiological mechanisms involved in placebo and nocebo effects across disorders of the central nervous system, for instance pain, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. These mechanisms are studied in relation to pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments such as surgery, deep brain stimulation, spinal cord stimulation, psychotherapy, music, acupuncture, physiotherapy and animal-assisted therapy.

Research funding: My research is funded by the Lundbeckfonden, the Danmarks Frie Forskningsfond, the Aarhus Universitets Forskningsfond, the Innovationsfonden, the National Institute of Health, the Innovative Medicine Initiative and International Network Programme, the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation. In addition, several projects are funded by the Trygfonden and the Parkinsonforeningen.

Publications and outreach: I have more than 100 peer-reviewed international publications, and my research has been published in leading journals such as The Lancet, The British Medical Journal, The Lancet Neurology, JAMA Psychiatry and Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics. My research has been cited in international media such as the New York Times, Der Spiegel and the Sydney Morning Herald, and I frequently present my research at international conferences such as the World Congress of Pain.

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Research focus: My research primarily deals with clinical trials in pain conditions, specifically migraines, focusing on placebo research evaluating novel methods for accurate drug effect estimations and complex interactions between drug and placebo responses. Other areas of research include orofacial pain and headache disorders, neurorehabilitation, sensorimotor function, brain stimulation, special care dentistry.

Background: The randomized controlled trial (RCT) is a gold standard in developing and testing new drugs including for migraine. In a RCT, typically an active drug is compared to an inactive placebo. Recently, research have indicated that some assumptions underlying RCT may be incorrect leading to miscalculation of the actual drug response accounting for large placebo responses. As a result, promising new compounds fail to outperform placebo in RCTs, which leads to the conclusion that the drug is not effective. Recently, there has been great progress in the development of migraine treatments, especially preventive treatments. On the other hand, there are also increasing discussions on anti-migraine trials for how the true value of treatment effects should be assessed. To resolve this problem, we will develop and assess an improved method for testing the efficacy of new drugs that is able to account for the complex relationship between drug and placebo responses.

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Assistant Professor at the PN Research Lab, Neuroscientific Research Unit

Research focus: My primary research areas include non-pharmacological treatment of pain and placebo effects on pain, focusing on underlying psychological and neurobiological mechanisms.

Background: About 20% of the Danish population suffer from and live with pain. Around the world, there is an increase in the number of chronic pain patients and a growing opioid crisis in terms of excessive use and dependency of opioid drugs; therefore there is a distinct need for non-pharmacological, complementary methods for treatment of pain. A decisive factor for the use of such treatments – e.g., music and animal-assisted therapy – is that there is no risk for side effects as is often the case with ordinary medical treatments. At the same time, there is a need for more stringent methods of investigation documenting the effect of such treatments. Therefore, in cooperation with researchers from, for instance, Center for Music in the Brain and Harvard Medical School, I study which specific and non-specific components are involved in complementary pain treatment in order to specify how they influence our experience of pain and underlying neurobiology.

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Research focus: My research primarily focuses on patients with severe chronic pain who are treated with spinal cord stimulation. I investigate how patients’ expectations of treatment efficacy influence their experience of the treatment.

Research background: Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is a treatment used in clinical practice for patients with severe chronic pain who have exhausted other treatment options. The procedure involves the implantation of an electrode near the spinal cord and carries certain risks, including infection and lead migration. Existing evidence supporting the efficacy of spinal cord stimulation largely stems from industry-sponsored research, such as studies funded by device manufacturers. Consequently, there is a pressing need to investigate the treatment's effects further, particularly through placebo-controlled trials. In collaboration with clinicians and researchers at institutions including Aarhus University Hospital, I explore how patients’ expectations interact with their perceived treatment outcomes. In addition to enhancing our understanding of spinal cord stimulation’s clinical effects, the study will contribute valuable insights into for whom the treatment is effective, the mechanisms underlying its effect, and the physiological and psychological parameters it influences.

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Mette Sieg, MSc (health psychology), PhD student

PhD student at the PN Research Lab, Neuroscientific Research Unit

Research focus: My research primarily concerns the negative effects of informed consent and how these effects are mediated and moderated by patient expectations, doctor-patient relationship and other contextual factors.

Background: Informed consent is an important foundation in the practitioner-patient relation and fundamental patient rights. However, some studies have indicated that the information patients are given regarding treatment before giving informed consent, may actually increase the risk of experiencing side effects subsequently. This means that, by respecting the patient’s right to informed consent, the practitioner may potentially harm the patient unnecessarily. As this research area is relatively new, our knowledge about the negative effects of informed consent is still sparse. I cooperate with researchers from Maryland University, the University of Toledo and Aarhus University Hospital, on investigations of how much information on side effects the general population wish to have and to which degree information on side effects influences the prevalence of side effects in connection with heart surgery. All of this in an attempt to uncover how the nocebo effect of informed consent is best minimized in clinical practice.

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PhD student at the PN Research Lab, Neuroscientific Research Unit

Focus areas: My research primarily deals with pain in Parkinson´s Disease and on how to optimize evaluation of the effect of pharmacological treatments.

Background: Pain is the most frequent non-motor symptom in the neurodegenerative disorder Parkinson´s disease. With reported prevalence ranging from 40% to 95.5%, studies consistently report pain is more prevalent in people with Parkinson´s disease compared to the general population. Pain in Parkinson´s Disease is associated with significant impairments including increased depression, anxiety, and low quality of life. Yet, research on pain in Parkinson´s Disease is lacking. First, qualitative literature examining how patients with Parkinson´s Disease experience their pain and pain treatment is scarce. I therefore conduct qualitative research aiming to understand and report firsthand experiences with pain in Parkinson´s Disease. Second, experimental studies of pain in Parkinson´s disease (PD) have predominantly applied thermal, mechanical pressure, and electrical stimulation modalities. Yet, literature suggests the chemical stimulation modality using intramuscular injections of hypertonic saline could be a relevant method to study pain in Parkinson´s Disease as the quality of the induced pain mimics clinical pain. I am therefore currently examining the utility of using intramuscular injections of hypertonic saline to induce and assess musculoskeletal pain in Parkinson´s Disease experimentally.

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