The mission of our lab is to investigate the brain bases of cognitive control processes, particularly the cognitive control of pain and emotion. We study how cognitive factors influence the way in which nociceptive (painful) stimuli and other aversive events are processed in the brain and body. Recent and ongoing studies combine measurements of emotional behavior and self-report, brain activity (measured with fMRI, or, less frequently, PET or EEG), and peripheral physiology, including measures of autonomic and endocrine activity. Published papers can be found by clicking the "Papers" link above.

Placebo effects. Treatment with a placebo (an inert substance) is one important way of introducing expectancies about pain relief in an experimental context, and placebo treatments influence perceived outcomes in a variety of disorders. One line of research investigates the brain bases of placebo effects. Some key questions are: Which underlying cognitive and brain processes mediate placebo effects (including expectancy, attention, and arousal)? How do the mechanisms underlying placebo effects relate to other manipulations of cognitive context that influence sensory, affective, and evaluative processes in the brain? How deeply do placebo effects reach into the body's physiology, and what physiological systems can they affect? A related line of research compares manipulations of expectancy and cogntive appraisal with instructions (and in some cases training) to generate internal emotion- and pain-regulatory strategies.

Understanding control processes in the brain requires advances in both our conceptual understanding of brain function, particularly as related to emotional and evaluative processes, and advances in the techniques used to investigate brain dynamics. Other branches of research in our lab are aimed at understanding cognitive regulation of affect by supporting development in these areas.

One line of research uses meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of neuroimaging activations across different tasks and states. Can imaging be used to provide evidence that cognitive control has made an aversive stimulus less aversive? An answer to that question requires the ability to localize negative emotions in the brain. What cognitive control operations does the regulation of emotion require? Meta-analyses of executive working memory, attention shifting, inhibition, and related control processes can help provide mappings between brain systems and psychological "executive" functions.

Another area of research is in developing analysis methods of practical value in forging links across the psychological and brain systems levels of analyses. These include enhanced methods for modeling fMRI timeseries, including tools for multilevel mediation and pathway model-building from fMRI data; models appropriate for emotional states with uncertain onset and duration; optimized experimental design; applications of robust regression to imaging data; and predictive (i.e., classifier) analyses.