Brain Products Young Scientist Award 2023 presented to Andreas Strube

by Stefanie Rudrich (Brain Products Head of Marketing)

The Brain Products Young Scientist Award is presented each year to recognize a young researcher’s outstanding publication in the field of EEG-based psychophysiological research. The winner is chosen by an independent jury, which is appointed by the managing board of the “Deutsche Gesellschaft für Psychologie und ihre Anwendung” (DGPA). At Brain Products, we want to have a positive impact on the fields of psychology and neuroscience and thereby award and celebrate excellent EEG research in these domains. By recognizing young scientists, we aim to support the next generation of researchers and their scientific discoveries.

Brain Products Young Scientist Award 2023 presented to Andreas Strube

Brain Products Young Scientist Award Winner 2023: Andreas Strube

This year’s award ceremony took place on June 10th at the 48th Annual Conference “Psychologie & Gehirn” (PuG) in Tuebingen (Germany), where Andreas Strube was presented as the Young Scientist Award winner 2023. Andreas is a PhD student at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), Institute of Systems Neuroscience in Germany and received a trophy, a certificate and a cheque for 1000€.

In his awarded publication, “Agency affects pain inference through prior shift as opposed to likelihood precision modulation in a Bayesian pain model,” he and his co-authors show that agency and positive treatment expectations additively enhance treatment success. EEG data suggest modulation by agency at expectation- and sensory-related processes. Computational modeling shows that this can be integrated as a prior shift in a Bayesian pain model.

For more details, see the original abstract (below) and don’t miss out on reading the full publication.

Abstract

Strube A, Horing B, Rose M, Büchel C.
Agency affects pain inference through prior shift as opposed to likelihood precision modulation in a Bayesian pain model.
Neuron. 2023 Apr 5;111(7):1136-1151.e7. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2023.01.002. Epub 2023 Feb 1. PMID: 36731468; PMCID: PMC10109109.

Agency and expectations play a crucial role in pain perception and treatment. In the Bayesian pain model, somatosensation (likelihood) and expectations (prior) are weighted by their precision and integrated to form a pain percept (posterior). Combining pain treatment with stimulus-related expectations allows the mechanistic assessment of whether agency enters this model as a shift of the prior or a relaxation of the likelihood precision. In two experiments, heat pain was sham treated either externally or by the subject, while a predictive cue was utilized to create high or low treatment expectations. Both experiments revealed additive effects and greater pain relief under self-treatment and high treatment expectations. Formal model comparisons favored a prior shift rather than a modulation of likelihood precision. Electroencephalography revealed a theta-to-alpha effect, temporally associated with expectations, which was correlated with trial-by-trial pain ratings, further supporting a prior shift through which agency exerts its influence in the Bayesian pain model.

On behalf of the whole Brain Products team, congratulations, Andreas, on winning our Young Scientist Award 2023. We will continue to follow your research and wish you all the best for your future!

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Reference

Strube A, Horing B, Rose M, Büchel C
Agency affects pain inference through prior shift as opposed to likelihood precision modulation in a Bayesian pain model.
Neuron. 2023 Apr 5;111(7):1136-1151.e7. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2023.01.002. Epub 2023 Feb 1. PMID: 36731468; PMCID: PMC10109109.