Adapting to Change: Learning and Extinction in Dynamic Environments in Healthy Individuals and Chronic Pain Patients (A11)

• Subject Area: Human Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience
• Term: since 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 316803389

Using a probabilistic pain-related learning paradigm, we will investigate whether chronic back pain (CBP) patients exhibit impaired belief updating about upcoming pain stimuli following contingency reversals compared to healthy volunteers. Behavioral mechanisms, temporal dynamics and different learning models; and the influence of clinical, state and trait variables will be explored. We will assess whether the ability to update expectancies predicts the effectiveness of interdisciplinary multimodal pain treatment (IMPT) in CBP patients. Resting-state fMRI and diffusion tensor imaging will be used to identify predictors of individual abilities in belief updating.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 1280: Extinction Learning
• Applicant Institution: Ruhr-Universität Bochum
• Project Heads: Professorin Dr. Ulrike Bingel; Dr. Katarina Forkmann, until 6/2022; Dr. Katharina Schmidt, since 9/2022