Lauren Y. Atlas

Education and Research Experience

Postdoctoral fellow, New York University: Sept. 2011 - present

Supervisor: Elizabeth A. Phelps, Ph.D.

Ph.D. in Psychology, Columbia University, 2011

Advisor: Tor D. Wager, Ph.D.

Dissertation, awarded with distinction: "Brain mechanisms of expectancy effects on pain experience."

FMRI Project Coordinator, Stanford University, 2004-2006

Mood and Anxiety Disorders Laboratory (P.I. Ian Gotlib)

Symbiotic Project on Affective Neuroscience (P.I. Brian Knutson)

B.A. in Psychology, University of Chicago, 2003

Advisor: John T. Cacioppo, Ph.D.

B.A. with Honors, Psychology

Thesis:"Loneliness and Coping: Cardiovascular and Subjective Responses to Active and Passive Coping Tasks”

Peer-Reviewed Publications

Atlas, L.Y., Lindquist, M.A., Whittington, R.A., Wielgosz, J., Sonty, N., & Wager, T.D. (In press). Dissociable influences of opiates and expectations on pain. The Journal of Neuroscience.

Johnston, N.E.*, Atlas, L.Y.*, & Wager, T.D. (In press). Opposing effects of expectancy and somatic focus on pain. PLOS One. * = Equal authorship contributions.

Atlas, L.Y. and Wager, T.D. (In press). How expectations shape pain. Neuroscience Letters.

Cribben, I., Haraldsdottir, R., Atlas, L.Y., Wager, T.D., & Lindquist, M.A. (In press). Dynamic connectivity regression: Determining state-related changes in brain connectivity. Neuroimage.

Buhle, J., Kober, H., Ochsner, K.N., Mende-Siedlecki, P., Weber, J., Hughes, B., Kross, E., Atlas, L.Y., McRae, K., & Wager, T.D. (In press). Common representation of pain and negative emotion in the midbrain periaqueductal gray. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.

Wager, T.D., Atlas, L.Y., Leotti, L.A., and Rilling, J.K. (2011). Predicting individual differences in placebo analgesia: Contributions of brain activity during anticipation and pain experience.  The Journal of Neuroscience 31(2), 439-452.

Atlas, L.Y. Bolger, N., Lindquist, M.A., and Wager, T.D. (2010). Brain mediators of predictive cue effects on perceived pain. The Journal of Neuroscience 30(39), 12964-12977. [Link to Paper] Additional information.

Eugene, F., Joormann, J., Cooney, R.E., Atlas, L.Y., and Gotlib, I.H. (2010) Neural correlates of inhibitory deficits in depression. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging 181(1), 30-35. 

Lindquist, M.A., Loh, J.M., Atlas, L.Y., and Wager, T.D, (2009). Modeling the Hemodynamic Response Function in fMRI: Efficiency, Bias, and Mis-modeling. Neuroimage 45(1), S187-198.

Atlas, L.Y. and Wager, T.D. (2009).  “The Placebo Response” in Encyclopedia of Consciousness. Ed. William Banks. 

Knutson, B., Bhanji, J., Cooney, R.E., Atlas, L.Y., and Gotlib, I.H. (2008). Neural responses to monetary incentives in major depression.  Biological Psychiatry 63(7), 686-692.

Cooney, R.E., Joormann, J., Atlas, L.Y., Eugene, F., & Gotlib, I.H. (2007). Remembering the Good Times: Neural Correlates of Affect Regulation. NeuroReport,18(17), 1771-1774. 

Invited talks

January 2012, Weill Cornell Medical School Science Brownbag, New York, NY "Expectancy effects on pain: How cue-based expectations shape affective experience."

Sept 2011, Scientific research network on decision neuroscience and aging (SRNDNA) Methods Workshop: Multilevel Modeling, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL: "Mediation analysis for fMRI: Application and methods"

April 2011: Thinking and Decision Making slide session, Cognitive Neuroscience Society, San Francisco, CA: "Expectations about stimuli operate independently from expectations about treatments: The role of expectancy during opioid analgesia"

April 2011, Guest lecturer, Analysis of change statistics course, Columbia University: "Multilevel mediation analysis and its application in fMRI"

Nov 2010: Seeing and Feeling Nanosymposium, SFN, San Diego, Ca: "Expectancy effects and remifentanil administration: Dissociable contributions of opioid and placebo analgesia"

October 2010: Yale Magnetic Resonance Research Center fMRI Seminar Series: "How expectancies shape subjective experience: Brain mediators of cue effects on perceived pain."

June 2010: NYU Center for Biomedical Imaging, Advanced fMRI Analysis Workshop: "An Introduction to mediation analysis for fMRI"

June 2010: OHBM Oral Session, Barcelona, Spain: "Open vs hidden opioid administration: Belief modulates remifentanil effects on pain-evoked responses"

May 2010: Dartmouth University fMRI Brownbag Series: "Brain mediators of expectancy effects on perceived pain: An introduction to multilevel mediation analysis for fMRI"

Honors and Awards

2011:

Doctoral dissertation awarded with Distinction, Columbia University

Invited junior investigator, Travel Award, NIH 6th Annual Symposium on Advances in Pain Research

Notable poster award, Travel Award, IBSC Conference, Boulder, CO

2010:

OHBM Trainee Abstract Award

Scholar, European Pain School, Siena, Italy

2009

Society for Neuroscience Graduate Student Travel Award

2008

Honorable Mention, National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship

2007

Fellow at the Summer Institute in Cognitive Neuroscience, University of California, Santa Barbara

Book Chapters

Atlas, L.Y. and Wager, T.D. (In press). Expectations and beliefs: Insights from cognitive neuroscience. In K. Ochsner and S. Kossyln (Eds). Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Neuroscience.

Atlas, L.Y., Wager, T.D., Dahl, K., and Smith, E.E. (2009). Placebo Effects. In J.T. Cacioppo and G.G Berntson (Eds.) Handbook of Neuroscience for Behavioral Psychologists (1236-1259). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Atlas, L.Y. and Wager, T.D. (2009). The neural bases of placebo effects in pain. In S. Aizenstat and R. Bosnak (Eds). Imagination and Medicine (107-134). New Orleans: Spring Journal, Inc.

Selected Posters

See PDF version of CV for full poster list... Click hyperlink for reprints of posters below.

Atlas, L.Y., Whittington, R.A., Sonty, N., & Wager, T.D. (2010). Expectancy-based enhancement of opioid analgesia: An fMRI study of hidden vs. open remifentanil analgesia. Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS), Montreal, Canada, April, 2010. 

Atlas, L.Y., Bolger, N., Lindquist, M., & Wager, T.D. (2009). Amygdala mediates expectancy effects on pain-processing regions. Social and Affective Neuroscience Conference, New York, NY, October, 2009.

Atlas, L.Y., Bolger, N., Lindquist, M., & Wager, T.D. (2009). Multiple brain pathways mediate expectancy effects on pain. OHBM, San Francisco, CA. June, 2009.

Atlas, L.Y., Davidson, M., Dahl, K., Lindquist, M., & Wager, T.D. (2008).  Tracing pain pathways from stimulus to report. CNS, San Francisco, CA. April, 2008.