Tor Wager

Wager was raised in Christian Science in Colorado. He received his PhD in 2003 from the University of Michigan in cognitive psychology, with a focus on cognitive neuroscience.{{cite web | url=http://www.colorado.edu/neuroscienceprogram/wager.html | title=Tor Wager | work=University of Colorado | accessdate=21 January 2015}} As a graduate student there, he spent some time researching brain changes in response to emotions using imaging techniques. Although Wager found the work fascinating, he later decided to study placebos because he wanted to research something that could help patients. He is most recently on the faculty at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.

Wager became an assistant professor of psychology at Columbia University in 2004. In 2010, he became a faculty member at the University of Colorado Boulder.

In 2004, while a graduate student at the University of Michigan, Wager conducted a study which found that people who reported the most relief in pain after receiving a placebo also showed the most reduction in activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, thalamus, and insula, all of which are brain regions that respond to physical pain.{{cite journal|last1=Wager|first1=T. D.|title=Placebo-Induced Changes in fMRI in the Anticipation and Experience of Pain|journal=Science|date=20 February 2004|volume=303|issue=5661|pages=1162–1167|doi=10.1126/science.1093065|pmid=14976306|bibcode=2004Sci...303.1162W |citeseerx=10.1.1.140.9775|s2cid=1284349}}{{cite web | url=http://discovermagazine.com/2014/julyaug/14-why-nothing-works | title=Power of the Placebo | work=Discover Magazine | date=7 July 2014 | accessdate=21 January 2015 | author=Vance, Erik}} In 2013, Wager published a study which found that it is possible to detect physical pain, as well as measure how intense the pain was, using an fMRI scan.{{cite journal|last1=Wager|first1=Tor D.|last2=Atlas|first2=Lauren Y.|last3=Lindquist|first3=Martin A.|last4=Roy|first4=Mathieu|last5=Woo|first5=Choong-Wan|last6=Kross|first6=Ethan|title=An fMRI-Based Neurologic Signature of Physical Pain|journal=New England Journal of Medicine|date=11 April 2013|volume=368|issue=15|pages=1388–1397|doi=10.1056/NEJMoa1204471|pmid=23574118|pmc=3691100}}{{cite web | url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/10/doctors-brain-scans-pain/2071863/ | title=Study: Brain scans can measure pain | work=USA Today | date=10 April 2013 | accessdate=21 January 2015 | author=Marchione, Marilynn}} A 2015 study led by Wager exposed patients to pain in the form of increasing heat, and then asked them to "rethink" their pain. Wager et al. found that when the patients did so, they were able to alter the amount of pain they felt and certain brain structures linking the nucleus accumbens and ventromedial prefrontal cortex were activated.{{cite journal|last1=Woo|first1=Choong-Wan|last2=Roy|first2=Mathieu|last3=Buhle|first3=Jason T.|last4=Wager|first4=Tor D.|last5=Posner|first5=Michael|title=Distinct Brain Systems Mediate the Effects of Nociceptive Input and Self-Regulation on Pain|journal=PLOS Biology|date=6 January 2015|volume=13|issue=1|pages=e1002036|doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002036|pmid=25562688|pmc=4285399 |doi-access=free }}{{cite web | url=https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26799-brain-signature-of-emotionlinked-pain-is-uncovered.html#.VMRbqWR4rLc | title=Brain signature of emotion-linked pain is uncovered | work=New Scientist | date=14 January 2015 | accessdate=24 January 2015 | author=Hamzelou, Jessica}}

Wager's research has also found that administering placebos to patients and telling them that the pills were pain medicine leads to their brains releasing opioids,{{cite journal|last1=Wager|first1=T. D.|last2=Scott|first2=D. J.|last3=Zubieta|first3=J.-K.|title=Placebo effects on human mu-opioid activity during pain|journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences|date=19 June 2007|volume=104|issue=26|pages=11056–11061|doi=10.1073/pnas.0702413104|pmid=17578917|pmc=1894566|bibcode=2007PNAS..10411056W |doi-access=free}}{{cite web | url=https://abcnews.go.com/Health/Technology/story?id=3433101 | title=People Need Both Drugs and Faith to Get Rid of Pain | work=ABC News | date=1 August 2007 | accessdate=21 January 2015 | author=James, Susan Donaldson}} which he has described as "the brain's own morphine."{{cite web | url=https://www.bbc.com/news/health-26191713 | title=The medicine in our minds | work=BBC | date=16 February 2014 | accessdate=21 January 2015 | author=Bootle, Olly}} His studies have also found that placebo administration is associated with increased activity in the frontal cortex of the brain.{{cite web | url=https://psmag.com/social-justice/the-chemical-contrails-of-the-placebo-5667 | title=The Chemical Contrails of the Placebo | work=Pacific Standard | date=30 November 2009 | accessdate=25 January 2015 | author=Haederle, Michael}}

{{Reflist}}

• [https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=CvoeunUAAAAJ&hl=en Tor Wager] at Google Scholar

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Category:American cognitive neuroscientists

Category:Living people

Category:University of Colorado Boulder faculty

Category:University of Michigan alumni

Category:Placebo researchers

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)