https://torwager.github.io/canlab/ New publications from the Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Lab at Dartmouth. Mon, 14 Sep 2026 16:25:40 +0000 https://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/roy2017neuromatrix.htmlhttps://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/roy2017neuromatrix.htmlRoy, M. & Wager, T. D. (2017). The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Pain (J. Corns, Ed.), Routledge, pp. 87-97. This book chapter discussed the neuromatrix theory of pain in the context of the philosophy of pain, as part of the Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Pain. https://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/koban2017whats.htmlhttps://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/koban2017whats.htmlKoban, L., Jepma, M., Geuter, S., & Wager, T. D. (2017). Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews. This review synthesized literature on how instructions, suggestions, and social information affect pain and emotion through observational learning, social influence, placebo, and hypnosis, proposing that prefrontal regulation of expectation and appraisal mediates these effects. https://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/smith2017potential.htmlhttps://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/smith2017potential.htmlSmith, S. M., Dworkin, R. H., Turk, D. C., Baron, R., Polydefkis, M., Tracey, I., Borsook, D., Edwards, R. R., Harris, R. E., Wager, T. D., Arendt-Nielsen, L., Burke, L. B., Carr, D. B., Chappell, A., Farrar, J. T., Freeman, R., Gilron, I., Goli, V., Haeussler, J., Jensen, T., Katz, N. P., Kent, J., Kopecky, E. A., Lee, D. A., Maixner, W., Markman, J. D., McArthur, J. C., McDermott, M. P., Parvathenani, L., Raja, S. N., Rappaport, B. A., Rice, A. S. C., Rowbotham, M. C., Tobias, J. K., Wasan, A. D., & Witter, J. (2017). The Journal of Pain. This IMMPACT consensus review evaluated sensory testing, skin punch biopsy, and functional brain imaging as candidate diagnostic, prognostic, predictive, and pharmacodynamic biomarkers for chronic pain clinical trials, concluding that further standardization and validation are needed. https://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/becker2017orbitofrontal.htmlhttps://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/becker2017orbitofrontal.htmlBecker, S., Gandhi, W., Pomares, F., Wager, T. D., & Schweinhardt, P. (2017). Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. Monetary reward reduced pain perception, and individual differences in reward-induced analgesia correlated with medial orbitofrontal cortex activity, whose connectivity with insula, anterior cingulate, and somatosensory cortex decreased during simultaneous reward and pain, without changing neurologic pain signature responses. https://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/woo2017imaging.htmlhttps://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/woo2017imaging.htmlWoo, C.-W. & Wager, T. D. (2017). Nature Medicine. This commentary discussed a study that identified four fMRI resting-state connectivity-based biotypes of depression, which differentiated patients from controls with about 80-90% accuracy and predicted response to dorsomedial prefrontal TMS treatment. https://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/satpute2015involvement.htmlhttps://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/satpute2015involvement.htmlSatpute, A. B., Kang, J., Bickart, K. C., Yardley, H., Wager, T. D., & Barrett, L. F. (2015). Frontiers in Psychology. This meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies found that limbic/paralimbic regions and early sensory cortices were engaged across visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and somatosensory affective experiences, and multivariate classification decoded stimulus modality from activation patterns. https://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/borsook2015pharmacological.htmlhttps://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/borsook2015pharmacological.htmlBorsook, D., Wager, T. D., & Tracey, I. (2015). The Brain Adapting with Pain (A. V. Apkarian, Ed.), Wolters Kluwer. Reviews pharmacological fMRI as a tool for characterising analgesic drug effects on brain systems and for drug development in pain. https://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/sprenger2015placebo.htmlhttps://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/sprenger2015placebo.htmlSprenger, C., Wager, T. D., & Büchel, C. (2015). The Brain Adapting with Pain (A. V. Apkarian, Ed.), Wolters Kluwer. Reviews neuroimaging and pharmacological evidence on how placebo analgesia modulates activity in the central nervous system, from prefrontal and brainstem regions to the spinal cord. https://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/silvers2014worse.htmlhttps://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/silvers2014worse.htmlSilvers, J. A., Weber, J., Wager, T. D., & Ochsner, K. N. (2014). Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. This fMRI study compared reappraisal of high- and low-intensity negative emotions and found that both recruited dorsomedial and left prefrontal regions, with high-intensity reappraisal additionally engaging right lateral and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. https://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/lindquist2008application.htmlhttps://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/lindquist2008application.htmlLindquist, M. A. & Wager, T. D. (2008). Applied Data Analytic Techniques for Turning Points Research (P. Cohen, Ed.), Routledge. Describes change-point methods for detecting and modelling state-related changes in fMRI time series without a priori timing, with applications to emotion and anxiety paradigms. https://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/ibonie2026prosocial.htmlhttps://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/ibonie2026prosocial.htmlIbonie, S. G., Villanueva, C. M., Reddan, M. C., Rosa, L., Hargrove, R., Weinstock, L. M., Carter, M., Wager, T. D., Zaki, J., & Gruber, J. (2026). Journal of Affective Disorders. Assessed six domains of prosocial behavior (cooperation, reciprocity, altruism, trust, perspective-taking, helping) in adults with bipolar I disorder, major depressive disorder, and controls, finding no significant group differences in overall prosocial behavior. https://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/kapri2026psychobiological.htmlhttps://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/kapri2026psychobiological.htmlKapri, D., Strum, G., Kelly, C., Bo, K., Liu, C., Wager, T. D., Trumpff, C., & Picard, M. (2026). Psychophysiology. Researchers examined how time perception related to mitochondrial bioenergetics, catecholamines, working memory, and neuroimaging in healthy adults and people with mitochondrial DNA mutations, finding weak but notable associations. https://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/bo2026spatiotemporal.htmlhttps://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/bo2026spatiotemporal.htmlBo, K., Lindquist, M. A., Gianaros, P. J., & Wager, T. D. (2026). eLife. Applied finite impulse response modeling and data-driven clustering to fMRI data from 358 participants to show that amygdala subregions differ in their temporal response profiles to negative images and that cognitive reappraisal did not reliably alter these time courses. https://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/wager2026placebo.htmlhttps://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/wager2026placebo.htmlWager, T. D. (2026). Current Biology. Commented on a mouse study showing that a pharmacologically conditioned place context activates opioid signaling in a prefrontal-periaqueductal gray-rostral ventral medulla pathway to produce placebo analgesia paralleling morphine's mechanism. https://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/sicorello2026functional.htmlhttps://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/sicorello2026functional.htmlSicorello, M., Gianaros, P. J., Wright, A. G. C., Bogdan, P., Kraynak, T. E., Manuck, S. B., Schmahl, C., & Wager, T. D. (2026). Nature Communications. In a preregistered study of two large samples, tested whether neuroticism relates to amygdala, salience network, or affective neural signature responses during emotional tasks, finding no such associations but identifying a novel brain-wide machine learning pattern that predicted the stress-vulnerability facet. https://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/zhangintensitydependent.htmlhttps://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/zhangintensitydependent.htmlZhang, L.-B., Dehghani, A., Hu, L., Sadil, P., Losin, L., Lindquist, M., & Wager, T. D. (2026). bioRxiv. Used a Bayes factor-based approach across four fMRI datasets to show that higher-intensity stimulation produced topographical expansion of activation, recruiting new voxels beyond magnitude coding, generalizing across pain and other sensory modalities. https://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/crawford2026brainstem.htmlhttps://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/crawford2026brainstem.htmlCrawford, L. S., Kang, J. W. M., Wake, A. H., Love, T., Macey, P. M., Bannister, K., Wager, T., Macefield, V. G., Keay, K. A., & Henderson, L. A. (2026). NeuroImage. Used 7-Tesla fMRI in 37 pain-free participants to map brainstem regions underlying offset analgesia, finding distinct signal changes in the locus coeruleus, nucleus tractus solitarius, parabrachial nucleus, and rostral ventromedial medulla for pain decreases versus increases. https://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/dehghanitemporal.htmlhttps://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/dehghanitemporal.htmlDehghani, A., Gantz, D. M., Murphy, E. K., Halter, R. J., & Wager, T. D. (2026). bioRxiv. In a preregistered triple-blind randomized crossover trial, temporal interference stimulation of left primary motor cortex at 10, 20, or 70 Hz reduced bilateral experimentally evoked thermal pain relative to sham, with 10 Hz producing the largest analgesic effect. https://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/burke2026harnessing.htmlhttps://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/burke2026harnessing.htmlBurke, M. J., Sandra, D. A., Peciña, M., Olson, J. A., Mollica, A., Butler, M., Moss, J. H., Nicholson, T. R., Wager, T. D., & Kaptchuk, T. J. (2026). The Lancet Psychiatry. Reviewed neurobiological mechanisms of placebo and nocebo effects across psychiatric and medical conditions and proposed strategies, such as open-label placebo, conditioned dose reduction, and nocebo reframing, for harnessing them in clinical practice. https://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/taylor2026measuring.htmlhttps://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/taylor2026measuring.htmlTaylor, J. J., Szigeti, B., Silverberg, N. D., Ahmadzad-Asl, M., Kare, M., Webler, R., Orsini, D. K., Rosenblat, J. D., Bschor, T., Baethge, C., Sinyor, M., Nicholson, T. R., Wager, T. D., & Burke, M. J. (2026). The Lancet Psychiatry. Reviewed challenges in measuring and interpreting placebo and nocebo effects in psychiatric clinical trials, covering trial designs, blinding, interventional psychiatry trials, and shared mechanisms with treatments. https://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/kwon2026convergent.htmlhttps://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/kwon2026convergent.htmlKwon, M., Bo, K., Botvinik-Nezer, R. Kragel, P. A., Oudehove, L. V., Wager, T. D., & Affective Neuroimaging Consortium (2026). Nature Communications. Conducted a Bayesian mega-analysis of fMRI data across pain, appetitive, aversive, and cognitive control domains to identify convergent and selective functional zones in the insula, revealing a hierarchical topography with a multi-domain hub in bilateral dorsal anterior insula. https://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/weicerebellar.htmlhttps://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/weicerebellar.htmlWei, Z., Spisak, T., Timmann, D., Scherrer, G., Bingel, U., Wager, T. D., & Placebo Imaging Consortium (2026). bioRxiv. Reanalyzed individual-participant data from 20 fMRI studies of placebo analgesia (n=603) plus Human Connectome Project connectivity data (n=820) to show that pain and placebo effects converge in cerebellar and pontine regions consistent with a cortico-pontine-cerebellar predictive circuit. https://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/wake2026differential.htmlhttps://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/wake2026differential.htmlWake, A. H., Crawford, L. S., Meylakh, N., Ramachandran, A., Macefield, V. G., Macey, P. M., Wager, T., Bannister, K., Keay, K. A., & Henderson, L. A. (2026). The Journal of Pain. Used 7-Tesla fMRI in 44 pain-free individuals during a conditioned pain modulation paradigm to identify distinct brainstem circuits underlying pain inhibition versus facilitation. https://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/englert2026functional.htmlhttps://torwager.github.io/canlab/papers/englert2026functional.htmlEnglert, R., Kincses, B., Kotikalapudi R, Gallitto, G., Li, J., Hoffschlag, K., Woo, C. W., Wager, T. D., Timmann, D., Bingel, U., & Spisak, T. (2026). eLife. Introduced functional connectivity-based attractor neural networks, a free-energy-minimizing computational model of macro-scale brain dynamics, and validated it across seven fMRI datasets spanning rest, task, and autism spectrum disorder.