Neurobiology of the Placebo Effect, Part I

Dr. Luana Colloca is an associate professor at the School of Nursing and School of Medicine, University of Maryland and has extensive experience in the area of pain modulation and placebo effects. Luana received her MD degree from the University of Catanzaro, Medical School and holds both a master degree in Bioethics and a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Turin in Italy. She completed a post-doc fellowship at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden and a senior research fellowship at the National Institute of Health.Luana's main line of research focuses on how expectations and learning mechanisms shape experience-driven placebo and nocebo effects. The goal of this research is to provide a comprehensive approach to understanding pain modulation and complex functions as such placebo and nocebo effects, incorporating behavioral, pharmacological, functional and psychophysical information directly in humans. The developed approaches are pivotal in translating knowledge about pain modulation from human laboratory settings to patient populations.Luana has authored numerous original articles - well-cited in the biomedical literature and published in journals such as Nature Neuro, JAMA, J Neuro, BMJ, and Pain. Prof. Colloca also co-edited three books for Elsevier, JHP, and Lambert Press respectively on the neurophysiological and translational aspects of the placebo and nocebo effects.Photography Credit: Michael Ciesielski