Psychobiological exploration and treatment of chronic pain – Endowed Professorship at RWTH Aachen University
The professorship is dedicated to the psychological and neurobiological foundations of chronic, particularly neuropathic pain. Chronic pain should be understood in its heterogeneity as an interaction of psychological factors, sympathetic hyperactivation, and cerebral processing, in order to enable a better and more comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms as well as innovative and optimized therapeutic influence. The aim is to better understand the subjective perception processes of those affected by chronic pain as a multimodal phenomenon, both on a psychological and neuronal level, and to examine their variability. The focus of the professorship is the research of effective and innovative (psycho-)therapeutic concepts. This ranges from testing non-invasive stimulation methods to the role of personality factors of patients and therapists in the context of psychological treatment.
Milestones
- Establishment of a working group and psychophysiological laboratory in the newly founded Scientific Center for Neuropathic Pain (SNC-Aachen).
Teaching:
- Deafferentation pain. Lecture in the Pain Medicine block in the Human Medicine program, WS23/24
- Pain in the clinical-psychological context: Syndromes, pathomechanisms, therapeutic approaches. Extra-curricular seminar in the Master’s program in Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, WS23/24
- Biological Psychology I. Lecture in the Bachelor’s program in Psychology, SS24
- Lecture tours to present the institute and its work
Outlook 2025
Concentration on 2 main topics with expansion of research, final theses, and laboratory activities:
- Nociception and pain as two connected but distinct phenomena
- Psyche and soma as an inseparable unit in (chronic) pain
