Projects
Neural Gating of Bodily Sensations: Relationships with Subjective Perception and Negative Affect KU Leuven
Recurrent and debilitating symptoms such as pain and breathlessness in chronic health conditions represent a significant burden to the affected individuals and the society at large. How acute sensations transition into chronic complaints has been a central question in the field of health psychology, with popular and enduring models suggesting that negative affect, namely fear of symptoms and the general anxious predisposition, can affect how ...
Does attention to the body influence symptom perception? An experimental evaluation of hypervigilance and its impact on the perception of esophageal sensations. KU Leuven
Functional esophageal disorders are a class of gastrointestinal disorders where no organic abnormality explaining the symptoms can be identified. This disconnect between symptom perception and physiological abnormalities results in adverse disease outcomes. Given the impact of psychological processes on the gastrointestinal tract through the brain-gut axis, research has shifted towards identifying their potential role in modulating ...
Interoception of bodily sensations across organ domains and its relevance for somatic symptoms (“INBODY”) KU Leuven
Functional somatic syndromes (FSS) are characterized by chronic, disabling symptoms that do not correspond to observable organic dysfunction, and come at great individual and societal costs. Treatment options for FSS are limited, which is largely due to insufficient knowledge about the mechanisms underlying these symptoms. Disturbed interoception, the ability to process and perceive sensory signals from within the body, is believed to be ...
Hypervigilance and pain: the role of bodily threat Ghent University
The aim of this project is to invigorate research on hypervigilance by a series of well-controlled experiments using innovative attention paradigms. In a number of studies in healthy volunteers, it will be tested whether the experimental induction of bodily threat leads to general hypervigilance for bodily sensations, and whether the threat of pain in one specific body part induces location-specific hypervigilance. Furthermore, the assumption ...
Perceptual discrimination impairment in chronic pain: the role of fear learning. KU Leuven
A growing body of evidence has identified pain-related fear as key process in the development of chronic pain, a common and disabling disorder that remains challenging to treat. Yet, how such fear amplifies pain or affects perception remains unclear. Recently, we suggested that fear learning towards bodily sensations impairs the ability to discriminate between bodily sensations. Preliminary clinical findings report of a relationship between ...