Tor D. Wager is the Diana L. Taylor Distinguished Professor in Neuroscience at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

, as well as the director of the Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory at this university. He is known for his research into the

placebo effect A placebo ( ) is a substance or treatment which is designed to have no therapeutic value. Common placebos include inert tablets (like sugar pills), inert injections (like Saline (medicine), saline), sham surgery, and other procedures. In general ...

and into the way the brain processes

pain Pain is a distressing feeling often caused by intense or damaging stimuli. The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as "an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, ...

Early life and education

Wager was raised in

Christian Science Christian Science is a set of beliefs and practices associated with members of the Church of Christ, Scientist. Adherents are commonly known as Christian Scientists or students of Christian Science, and the church is sometimes informally know ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

. He received his PhD in 2003 from the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

in cognitive psychology, with a focus on

cognitive neuroscience Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific field that is concerned with the study of the biological processes and aspects that underlie cognition, with a specific focus on the neural connections in the brain which are involved in mental proces ...

. 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.

Academic career

Wager became an assistant professor of psychology at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 2004. In 2010, he became a faculty member at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Research

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 In the human brain, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is the frontal part of the cingulate cortex that resembles a "collar" surrounding the frontal part of the corpus callosum. It consists of Brodmann areas 24, 32, and 33. It is involved ...

thalamus The thalamus (from Greek θάλαμος, "chamber") is a large mass of gray matter located in the dorsal part of the diencephalon (a division of the forebrain). Nerve fibers project out of the thalamus to the cerebral cortex in all directions, ...

, and insula, all of which are brain regions that respond to physical pain. 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 Functional magnetic resonance imaging or functional MRI (fMRI) measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow. This technique relies on the fact that cerebral blood flow and neuronal activation are coupled. When an area o ...

scan. 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 The nucleus accumbens (NAc or NAcc; also known as the accumbens nucleus, or formerly as the ''nucleus accumbens septi'', Latin for "nucleus adjacent to the septum") is a region in the basal forebrain rostral to the preoptic area of the hypotha ...

and

ventromedial prefrontal cortex The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is a part of the prefrontal cortex in the mammalian brain. The ventral medial prefrontal is located in the frontal lobe at the bottom of the cerebral hemispheres and is implicated in the processing of r ...

were activated. 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

opioid Opioids are substances that act on opioid receptors to produce morphine-like effects. Medically they are primarily used for pain relief, including anesthesia. Other medical uses include suppression of diarrhea, replacement therapy for opioid us ...

s, which he has described as "the brain's own

morphine Morphine is a strong opiate that is found naturally in opium, a dark brown resin in poppies (''Papaver somniferum''). It is mainly used as a analgesic, pain medication, and is also commonly used recreational drug, recreationally, or to make ...

." His studies have also found that placebo administration is associated with increased activity in the frontal cortex of the brain.

References

External links

Tor Wager
at

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wager, Tor D. American cognitive neuroscientists Living people University of Colorado Boulder faculty University of Michigan alumni Placebo researchers Year of birth missing (living people)