How do we empathize with another person in pain? What role does our own pain perception play?

My research focuses on the behavioral and neural mechanisms underlying shared representations between first-hand and empathy for pain, specializing on a manipulation of first-hand pain through placebo analgesia. Generally, I aim for a deeper understanding of these processes by combining fMRI, physiology (ECG, SCR) and behavioral experiments.

Below is a short animation of my PhD research made by Scientistt.

Another’s pain in my somatosensory brain

In this project I am interested in what is actually shared when we see others in pain and what role sensory-discriminative pain processing plays in this regard.

Another’s pain in my social brain

This project investigates the transfer of placebo analgesia to effort-based prosocial decision-making in the domain of pain avoidance.

Another’s pain vs. my gain

In this project I am working together with the Social Brain Lab from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience in Amsterdam to further investigate how empathy and prosocial decision-making are related and represented in the brain.

Other projects

I further investigate the effect of placebo analgesia on interoceptive abilities, psychological differences between placebo responders and non-responders as well as self-other distinction and emotional egocentricity in autism.

MyMind

I work as a psychologist and researcher for MyMind, a startup company in Vienna. They are developing Brain Hero, a Neurofeedback game to improve concentration levels and relaxation capabilities in individuals with autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

FORRT

I am also a member of the Framework for Open and Reproducible Research Training (FORRT) where I am involved in multiple projects, such as the manuscript, the glossary, and the reversals project. We are always looking for new contributors and collaborators!

Conference contributions

Collaborative hackathons for FORRT’s “Replications and Reversals in Social Sciences” project

• Association for Interdisciplinary Metaresearch and Open Science (aimos) conference (2021)
• Psychological Science Accelerator (PSACON) conference (2021)

Another’s pain in my social brain: How does placebo analgesia affect decisions to exert effort to reduce another’s pain?

• 46th joint annual meeting Psychology and the Brain (PuG) of the Division of Biological Psychology and Neuropsychology of the DGPs and DGPA (2021)
• Society for Social Neuroscience conference (2021)

Engaging with Open Science as Feminist Early Career Researchers: 6 Top Tips

• Open Science Conference (2021)

Effects of spatially-specific placebo analgesia on somatosensory responses during first-hand and empathy for pain

• International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) Virtual Series on Pain & Expo (2020)
• 9th IMPRS Neurocom Summer School, Leipzig, Germany (2019)
• 25th Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM), Rome, Italy (2019)

Is your pain my pain? Effects of localized placebo analgesia on empathy for everyday painful situations

• 8th MindBrainBody Symposium of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (2021)
• Society for Neuroscience (SfN) Global Connectome (2021)
• 25th Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM), Rome, Italy (2019)

Social pain and emotional egocentricity in high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder: Behavioral and neurophysiological evidence

• Self-Knowing-Others Workshop, Brussels, Belgium (2018)
• International Society for Autism Research (INSAR) Annual Meeting, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2018)
• Social Brain Symposium, Vienna, Austria (2018)
• Society for Psychophysiological Research (SPR) Annual Meeting, Vienna, Austria (2017)
• Salzburg Mind Brain Annual Meeting (SAMBA), Salzburg, Austria (2017)

Podcast appearances

• I was part of a Children’s University workshop at the University of Vienna, where we taught children about the brain, perspective taking and empathy.

• I talked to Lee Delaney from Curiosity Cake about my PhD, specifically what kinds of methods I employ to measure empathy for pain in brain and behavior.

• I was so lucky to be part of the episode “Ever Felt Someone’s Pain… In Your Butt?" by Every Little Thing. Learn all about vicarious pain and how we can feel someone else’s pain in our own body.

• I chatted with Aaron Halliday about my research on empathy, prosocial behavior and interoception, but also about making science relevant and accessible to everyone.

Interviews

• DiscoverPhDs asked me about my PhD research, what a typical work day looks like for me and what enjoyments and challenges my PhD entails. Have a look at the full interview.

• 1 Million Women in STEM (1MWIS), a global network providing the stories of women studying & working in STEM, asked me what I do, why I chose this field of research, what I would tell my younger self and why I love working in STEM. Have a look at my answers.

• Check out the German interview I did for my Twitter takeover at Real Scientists DE in May 2020.

In-Mind

I wrote a German article about empathy and how we share the emotions of others, together with Markus Rütgen and Claus Lamm. Read the full article here. I also contributed two entries to the In-Mind glossary: Theorie der Geteilten Repräsentationen and Endogenes Opioidsystem.

Pint of Science

Pint of Science (PoS) brings scientists to share their latest research with you! I was part of 2020’s “Beautiful Mind” event manager team to organize three exciting evenings all about neuroscience that were unfortunately cancelled due to COVID. In 2021, I am also active for PoS Amsterdam, organizing online events. More info on the Website.

Long Night of Research

Together with my PhD colleagues, I organized a booth all about research in psychology and social neuroscience in 2018. Have you ever experienced the rubberhand illusion? How do we investigate something called affective touch? Can we put awake dogs into an MR-scanner? And can you match all brains to their corresponding species? More info on their website.

Photo Competition “My Research in one Picture”

In 2018, my photo about my PhD research titled “Another’s Pain in my Placebo Brain” got into the Top 10 of winning photos. See the other photos or general information on the competition.

FemABC

Feminist Alliance Book Club (FemABC), founded in December 2020, is a monthly book club to read and discuss books centred around feminism and underrepresented genders. Everybody is welcome to join! For more infomation, have a look at our Twitter or Goodreads pages. More info on the general idea and joining us can also be found here. If you have questions or want to become a member, write us an email at abc.feminist@gmail.com.

Scientistt

I am an ambassador for this exciting new research platform! Here are some of the cool things you can benefit from, if you sign up: Showcase your research skills and experience, find new research and job opportunities, get information about funding and conferences in your field, and connect with other researchers all around the world. And the best thing: Everything is completely free! Check out Scientistt on Twitter or have a look at their website. You can also sign up directly here.

Online studies

• German study about emotions and depression - click here to participate!

Lab studies in Vienna

• Check out our SCAN-Unit Facebook Page to find out about current studies!

• Sign up on participants platforms of the Laboratory Administration for Behavioral Sciences or the Vienna Cognitive Science Hub to get regular study invitations via E-Mail!

Lab studies in Amsterdam

• Here you can sign up to stay informed about current or future studies of the Social Brain Lab in Amsterdam!
• “Another’s Pain vs. my Gain” study (~3 hours, 8 Euros per hour) - For more information, please write an e-mail to experiments.sbl@nin.knaw.nl with the subject “PainGain”!