Where's the Ouch?
Distinguishing Emotional and Physical Pain

A string of high profile neuroimaging papers have pointed to similarities between patterns of activation elicited by physical pain (the “pain matrix”) and emotional stressors like social rejection. These papers have sparked a vigorous debate about the meaning of these apparent similarities. Are they evidence that social exclusion and other negative emotional experiences are experienced as painful or do they reflect common processes that are unspecific to physical pain? If these responses are non-specific, why has neuroimaging struggled to identify the mechanisms that underlie unique experiential aspect of physical pain?

The purpose of this symposium is to bring together experts in the fields of pain, social and affective neuroscience to examine how emotional and physical pain are distinct and how we might refine our methodology to detect these differences and better understand similarities.

P r o f e s s o r   G i a n d o m e n i c o   I a n n e t t i

Director of Iannetti Lab for Human Sensory Neuroscience and Pain Perception

University College London

P r o f e s s o r  C l a u s  L a m m 

Head of the Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Unit

University of Vienna  

D r   S i r i   L e k n e s

Director of Hedonic Pharmacology Laboratory

University of Oslo 

D r   T i m   S a l o m o n s   ( c h a i r )

Director of Pain, Affect and Cognition Laboratory

University of Reading

P r o f e s s o r   I r e n e   T r a c e y

Director of FMRIB, Head of Nuffield Department of Anesthetics

University of Oxford  

Curriculum Vitae

P r o f e s s o r   T o r   W a g e r

Director of the Cognitive and Affective Control Laboratory

University of Colorado    

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M e t h o d o l o g i c a l   M a s t e r   C l a s s

The second day will feature a limited enrolment Master Class

focusing on neuroimaging methodology 

Dr. Jonathan Brooks

University of Bristol