Pain, Action and Motor Control Symposium: 20-22nd Jan, Osaka

The Role of Pain in Bodily Defense and Autonomy

Date: 20 – 22 January, 2020
Venue: Center for Information and Neural Networks (CiNet), Osaka

URL and FREE registration: https://sites.google.com/view/painsymposium2019/home
Program: https://sites.google.com/view/painsymposium2019/home/program

Abstract: How does the brain generate the conscious perception of pain, and how does this help protect our bodily integrity? This interdisciplinary workshop bringing together researchers to discuss pain, action, and movement. Talks will range from understanding the theoretical basis of defensive systems in autonomous control, understanding the function of action and pain in health and disease.

Organisers
Ben Seymour (Cambridge, CiNet/NICT)
Nobuhiro Hagura (CiNet/NICT)
Takufumi Yanagisawa (Osaka University)

Invited Speakers
Rebeccah Slater（Oxford）
Sven Bestmann（UCL)
Victoria Chapman（Nottingham)
Gareth Hathway（Nottingham）
Markus Ploner（Munich）
Sang Wan Lee（KAIST）
Francesca Fardo（Aarhus）
Stella Koutsikou（Kent）
Abby Tabor（Bath）
Flavia Mancini（Cambridge）
Vicky Root（OXford, UCL）
Josh Johansen（RIKEN CBS）
Tatsuya Umeda（NCNP）
Masaya Hirashima（CiNet/NICT）
Tsuyoshi Ikegami（Columbia, CiNet/NICT)

Sponsors: ERATO, Versus Arthritis, IITP

Organising Institutions: NICT, CiNet, Osaka University.

Up to 2 post-doc positions available - deadline 3rd Jan 2020

I have up to 2 Wellcome funded post-doctoral positions available to start anytime from 1st April 2020 - apply here. The are for any creative and ambitious research in the general field of pain and aversive learning, especially with a focus on computational neuroscience, neurimaging, and learning theory. The positons are at the new Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging (formerly FMRIB), which offers an unparalleled environment to do fantastic research amongst friendly, world-class colleagues. 

Please feel free to email me (bjs49@cam.ac.uk) to discuss the positions informally.

Moving to Oxford - new positions available

From 1st April 2020, the lab will be moving to WIN / IBME at Oxford University, where we will work across clinical neuroscience and biomedical engineering. Later this year, we will advertise for postdoctoral researcher positions to commence from 1st April 2020 or later, so if you are interested, feel free to contact me at any point from now. There may also be PhD opportunities through either clinical neuroscience or engineering schools. 

New paper in Neuron - a review of the RL model of pain

Our new paper proposes a computational architecture of the pain system - how pain drives a diversity of responses, actions and learning. At its heart it addresses a fundamental question about what pain represents:either i) a sensory-dominant view, where pain reflects an optimal inference of perceived magnitude of a noxious event, or ii) control-dominant view, where pain reflects an optimal control signal for behavioural change? We argue for the control-dominant view, primarily on the basis of evidence from several core categories of endogenous control: modulation by decision conflict, by predictive value, and by informational value; i.e. even though Bayesian / predictive coding models can explain core instances of pain modulation, they can only be part of the solution, and a broader reinforcement learning model can accommodate pain variability more fully. This helps reframe pain as primarily and precisely tuned for learning and behavioural control. So whilst pain may be private, self-intimating, and incorrigible; it may also be precise and computationally objectifiable. This gives some insight into the broad array of brain regions needed to construct the perception of pain, and suggests a wealth of ways in abnormalities in the underlying computational architecture might predispose to chronic pain

 https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1YlZ93BtfGtEBK

New paper in eLife: Value generalization in human avoidance learning

Our new paper is out - here's the eLife digest:

People apply what they have learned from past experiences to similar situations, a phenomenon known as generalization. For example, if eating a particular food caused illness, a person will likely avoid foods that look or smell similar in the future. Generalization can be helpful because it allows people to decide how to act in new situations. But over-generalizing after a bad experience could lead an individual to fear benign scenarios. This may lead to unnecessary anxiety. It can also create a negative cycle where people avoid certain situations or objects, which prevents them from learning that they are safe.

Now, Norbury et al. show what happens in the brain when making decisions that involve generalization. In the experiments, volunteers were told seeing a particular flower design would lead to a painful electric shock, unless they pushed a button to ‘avoid’ that image. Individuals completed this task in a magnetic resonance imaging machine so Norbury et al. could observe their brain activity while they completed the task. A second group of individuals were asked to complete a similar task online, but instead of being shocked they lost money if they failed to hit a key when they saw the ‘dangerous’ flower. The online participants also filled out a survey about their experience of various psychological symptoms.

Norbury et al. used computer modeling to reconstruct how people decided whether or not to avoid images that looked similar to the harm-associated images but were in fact safe (did not lead to pain or losing money). The experiments showed that different parts of the brain were involved in different parts of the generalization process. Areas of the brain that interpret vision, fear, and safety played distinct roles. People who generalized more from harmful outcomes were more likely to report feeling anxious and having intrusive negative thoughts in their everyday lives. A better understanding of the brain processes that cause these symptoms in different situations might help scientists develop better treatments for conditions like anxiety in the future.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.34779.002

This was picked up by a number of news sites, for example ScienceDaily