Accepting A Doctoral Student for 2025

Posted on July 30, 2024 by Elliot Berkman

We’re pleased to announce that the Social and Affective Neuroscience lab at UO will be accepting a new doctoral student to begin in Fall 2025!

Is this position right for you? It might be if you share our lab values:

Content: Our values and priorities around the work we do

We aim to develop and translate scientific knowledge about goals, motivation, and self-regulation from neuroscience and psychology to inform pressing social issues.

The purpose of doing this work is to generate impact on applicable topics such as health behavior change at the individual and societal levels. The scientific purpose of our work is to pioneer innovative theory, methods, and applications of empirical knowledge.

Process: Our values and priorities around how we work and learn

We use rigorous, open, and interdisciplinary scientific methods in our research, and foster a supportive, robust, and personalized training environment. Specifically, our process values are:

  • Scientific rigor: Our scientific products should be accurate, reliable, and reproducible.
  • Open science: Our scientific tools, methods, data, and results should be accessible.
  • Interdisciplinary research: Our scientific approaches should draw from the best and most relevant ideas and methods from any field or discipline.

Our training values are:

  • Supportive environment: We should unconditionally support each other in our work, fully recognizing the challenges of this field and the multitude of ways to fulfill our mission.
  • Robust education: Trainees in the lab should gain not only deep expertise in one or more content areas but also internalize the process of scientific knowledge creation and continuous learning.
  • Personalized training: Trainees get the bespoke training in the skills they determine they need. The PI works with each trainee to help identify the targeted skill set.

Social: Our values and priorities around how we interact with each other

We care about transparency, open communication, scientific knowledge generation, and social inclusion. These values are expressed in the respectful way we interact with each other and our collaborators, with our participants, and with the lay public at large who are the primary sponsors and beneficiaries of our research.

We’re also looking for something very specific this year because of Elliot’s role in the CAS Dean’s Office. Here is an important message from Elliot that all potential candidates should read:

I have a policy of not meeting with prospective applicants for the sake of fairness. I don’t want to disadvantage people who wouldn’t even know to ask to chat before they apply. Instead, I’ve put together some information below that I share with any prospective applicants who contact me that I hope will answer the most common questions that applicants have. I’m happy to answer additional questions that aren’t addressed here via email.

What are the major research directions for the lab in the next five years?
The overarching direction for the lab will continue to be what we call translational neuroscience—using neuroimaging and particularly fMRI to develop and refine interventions for health and wellbeing. Check out more info about our Center for Translational Neuroscience, here. Another direction is the role of motivation and self in self-regulation and health behavior change. We have a couple of theoretical pieces on that thread of research: one on the role of identity in self-regulation and another on how self-control can be explained through a general valuation mechanism. You have probably noticed that our webpage has all of our publications and a description of our research.

What do we look for in prospective doctoral students?
High-quality and relevant research experience is the primary criterion for admission. We get lots of applications from smart people with good grades, strong letters, and so forth, so what distinguishes the most competitive applicants is a clear and detailed demonstration that they know what kinds of projects they want to work on and what being a researcher actually entails. At least one to two years of full-time research experience is the “gold standard” to prove that (a) you know what day-to-day life in a research lab looks like to the point that you know that you are willing to spend the better part of a decade doing it and (b) you have nurtured your own intellectual curiosity to the point that you can formulate research questions in the field that you are passionate about.

You should view your personal statement as your opportunity to persuade the reader (i.e., me and my lab group) why you have the knowledge and motivation to sustain your interest in a topic. A compelling personal statement will convince the lab members that you have a deep understanding of the field, have the capacity to generate original research questions, and are committed to working until at least 2030 to answer those questions.

Please note that I am right now completing a term as the Divisional Associate Dean for the Natural Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences at UO. This is a ~75% job, so I’m in the lab in person only on Fridays (though I’m available to meet with students most days). You can read more about my mentorship style in the next paragraph, but suffice to say that I’m even more hands-off than normal these days. So, this year I will be looking for a student who is highly independent and is capable of developing and leading new projects autonomously even with regular input, guidance, and support from me.

What is your mentorship style?
I view students as early-career professional colleagues whose job it is to develop their own research program and research identity, so I tend to be a fairly hands-off mentor. I give my students lots of leeway to choose their own research topics, design and run their own studies, and develop a research portfolio and skill set that they believe will help them in their careers. With that independence comes greater responsibility for students to figure out what they need to learn and how to learn it. The preceding is not to say that my students are entirely on their own; quite the contrary. I am highly accessible, but I am available to help and assist rather than direct my students or tell them what to do. I am available to meet any time in person and virtually and have standing meetings with my lab group multiple times per week. I provide financial, academic, and career support to my students, and there are ample resources in the lab, department, and wider university for students to learn whatever they might need to accomplish their goals. I view my role as a supportive one – I’m here to help, advise, nurture, and support my students achieve whatever academic and professional goals my students set for themselves. You can read much more about my style and what life in the lab looks like in the SAN Lab manual. 

What if I’m not sure I want an academic career?
As is the case at most of the top schools, the thrust of the UO doctoral program is to prepare people for careers inside of academia. The stance of the top programs is that their mission is to prepare the next generation of psychology faculty, even if some of the skills that are required for faculty might be transferrable to other careers. But, in reality, many of our students do not end up in R1 research jobs. That is also the case at most of the best schools. There is a bit of magical thinking and/or willful ignorance on the part of the universities, who know that they hire at most one or two new faculty per year but graduate many more doctorates than that and expect all of them to get faculty jobs. In the SAN Lab, we encourage people to find ways to use the skills they learn in their doctoral program to have successful, impactful lives outside of academia and I am committed to helping them get the training they need to do so. So, part of our training in graduate school is in generally useful skills such as grant writing, science communication and knowledge dissemination, and data science. I’ve written more about these issues in this Psychology Today article and, more darkly, here.

What else should I know before I apply?
Please note that Oregon, like many schools, runs admissions by area. So be sure to put my name in your personal statement and list it on the application website, and also put “social-personality” or “translational neuroscience” (my areas) as your first choice of areas when you rank order them on the website if you decide you want to work with me in that area.

What if I want to work in your lab but receive clinical training?
I am not a clinical psychologist and I’m not in the clinical area I’m not in the clinical area, but there is sometimes a way for students admitted to my lab to clinical training. Unfortunately, this year there are no spots for non-clinical students to receive clinical training at UO. If you are certain that you want clinical training, you need to apply to work with a faculty member in the clinical area. But, I hasten to add that doctoral clinical training in a psychology department is primarily intended for people who wish to be full-time researchers or scientist-practitioners. I am convinced that there are actually very few people in the world who truly want to be that; if you want to become a clinician (i.e., someone who helps clients directly rather than observing them from afar), there are much better and easier ways to do so, such as a doctoral degree in counseling psychology or school psychology or any number of master’s degrees (e.g., MSW, MFT) where you will receive better clinical training and not have to do six years of rigorous research. 
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Postdoc Position in Translational Neuroscience

Posted on July 2, 2020 by Elliot Berkman

We are hiring a postdoc to work on translational neuroscience projects on healthy eating and cigarette smoking cessation! We especially seek a person with good imaging and analysis chops who is interested to learn more about health psychology, intervention science, and translational neuroscience. The lab has good professional development opportunities including formal grant writing training, structured team mentorship, and availability of pilot funds to foster independent research. We particularly welcome applications from scholars who are from populations historically underrepresented in the academy. The full position description is below.

The Center for Translational Neuroscience is seeking a postdoctoral research associate to work with the Social and Affective Neuroscience (SAN) Lab headed by Dr. Elliot Berkman, on two NCI-funded clinical trials of theory-based interventions to promote healthy eating and smoking cessation. Work in the SAN lab is guided by a translational neuroscience approach to understanding the psychological and neural pathways through which interventions increase motivation, build habits, and support health behavior change. Both interventions are gathering neural, behavioral, and psychosocial data from N > 200 community participants who intend to change a specific health-related behavior (diet; smoking). We collect multimodal data including neuroimaging before and after an intervention period during which specific processes are targeted for change including high-level construal, motivation, and emotion regulation. Resulting data will be analyzed using advanced statistical modeling techniques including growth modeling and machine learning to evaluate the degree to which the interventions were effective, the pathways by which they operate, and for whom they are most effective. This position is ideal for candidates interested in translational neuroscience approaches to motivation and health behavior change. Given the current progress on the projects, we are looking for a highly conscientious and motivated individual with excellent writing, analysis, and coding abilities with the following interests and skills.

For the purpose of acquiring additional professional skills needed to pursue a career path in the chosen field, this position will have a formal mentor plan.

To apply for this position, please submit a CV, along with a cover letter and three professional references, to: https://careers.uoregon.edu/en-us/job/524954/postdoctoral-scholar-center-for-translational-neuroscience-open-pool

Minimum Requirements

  • PhD in related discipline by start of position, including Psychology, Neuroscience, Data Science, Education, Human Development, or related.
  • Experience in the field of research.
  • Evidence of scholarship.

Preferred Qualifications

  • Previous experience working with young children, adolescents, and families and/or previous experience working in community-based organizations.
  • Topical expertise in early adversity and preventive intervention including fast cycle learning.
  • Strong record of publications (including first-author manuscripts) in peer-reviewed journals.
  • Experience in the planning, implementation, and tracking of a research project comprising multiple assessments.
  • Experience with neuroimaging.

Professional Competencies

  • Excellent organizational, interpersonal, and communication skills, including the ability to function effectively as a team member and team leader as well as the ability to interpret and present information to a variety of audiences.
  • Demonstrated ability to work in a team environment, requiring participatory decision-making and cooperative interactions among employees.
  • Interest in supporting community-based research, including adapting research protocols for use in community settings and with diverse populations involving working closely to co-create intervention and evaluation protocol with community partners.
  • Interest in fast cycle and shared learning with a large and diverse research and development community.
  • Strong computer, statistical, and technical skills (SPSS, Qualtrics, Matlab, Python, R, SPM, FSL, AFNI, or similar platforms).
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New Grant on Smoking Cessation Using Construal Level

Posted on March 22, 2020 by Elliot Berkman

The lab has been awarded a new R01 grant “Construal level as a novel pathway for affect regulation and cancer control” from the National Cancer Institute. The project will run for 5 years beginning in April 2020. Dr. Berkman is the Principal Investigator, UO faculty Rob Chavez, Sara Weston, and Ellen Peters serve as Co-Investigators, as well as our collaborators Ken Fujita and Mary Ellen Wewers at The Ohio State University.

Project Summary

Lung cancer is the leading major cause of preventable death in the United States, and cigarette smoking is a contributor to lung cancer in 80%–90% of cases. Though adult cigarette smoking rates have declined substantially during the past 50 years, they remain as high as 30% in certain groups, such as individuals living in poverty.

Quitting is difficult: a given quit attempt results in cessation in fewer than 10% of cases, and most adult cigarette smokers have attempted and failed to quit, and often many times. What is urgently needed are novel interventions for cigarette smoking cessation that operate through different mechanisms from those targeted by existing interventions, which are likely to have been unsuccessful for persistent smokers. A barrier to progress is that the mechanisms of action of most treatments are not known, which makes it difficult to know which treatment will work best for whom.

We turn to affective science to identify a candidate technique that could serve as the basis for a novel intervention. Research on affect regulation typically focuses on down-regulation of affective states, such as craving for cigarettes, using effortful strategies such as cognitive reappraisal. However, a new insight in affect regulation is that people can construe, or subjectively understand, events with varying levels of abstraction, and that construing health-related behaviors in high- versus low-level terms promotes health behavior in several domains. For example, smokers who want to quit are more likely to resist a cigarette when they construe the same event (e.g., “abstinence”) in more abstract, high-level terms (e.g., “becoming a better me”) versus more concrete, low-level terms (e.g., “not smoking this cigarette”).

There is some evidence that high-level construal might rely on distinct mechanisms from traditional affect regulation and smoking reduction interventions, but its mechanisms of action are unknown. Directly comparing its mechanisms to those of alternative affect regulation strategies and developing tools to induce high-level construal are the next steps on the path toward developing a novel intervention. Also, establishing individual differences in the effects of high-level construal will allow future interventions to be targeted to the individuals for whom they will be maximally effective. We identified two candidate mechanisms through which high-level construal might operate: down-regulation of craving, and up-regulation of goal energization (i.e., motivation to quit). Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) revealed the neural systems engaged by those processes to be distinct. So, we will use multivariate analyses of fMRI data to quantify the similarity of high-level construal to each candidate (Aim 1). This will be done in a longitudinal translational experiment with 4 conditions—high-level construal, down-regulation of craving, up-regulation of goal energization, and treatment-as-usual—in a sample of persistent smokers in poverty, who are the most likely to benefit from a novel, theory-based treatment. The sample size (N = 240) affords an examination of individual differences in the effect of high-level construal on neural activity and craving, and the degree to which they predict smoking reduction (Aim 2).

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Seeking a Lab Manager

Posted on August 12, 2019 by Elliot Berkman

The SAN Lab is seeking a full-time lab manager to begin work in the fall of 2019. The position description is below. Interested applicants can submit their materials here.

Position Summary
The Social and Affective Neuroscience (SAN) Lab (sanlab.uoregon.edu) at the University of Oregon invites applications for a full-time Lab Manager under the direction of Dr. Elliot Berkman. The Lab Manager will be responsible for managing the daily operations of the lab and assisting in managing and collecting data for all current projects. The position will require the candidate to work independently and conscientiously on a wide variety of tasks that change from day to day. Considerable time management and multitasking skills are required. The Lab Manager is expected to help recruit, screen, and run participants and independently perform data management and analysis, manage and analyze neuroimaging and behavioral data, and assist in preparing reports. The Lab Manager will make decisions about the ordering of lab supplies, maintaining regulatory documentation, the supervision of graduate students and undergraduate volunteers. The Lab Manager will also be involved in structured project management and other personnel and lab administration tasks.

This full-time position requires a highly motivated person with excellent organizational, laboratory and communication skills. Specific duties and responsibilities include, but are not limited to: working on all aspects of research projects at all stages of development; managing and processing data; coordinating our project management system; maintaining lab hardware; placing and receiving orders for lab supplies; consulting with the IRB and other campus partners; and interacting with a dynamic group of scientists (undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral scientists, technicians, and the principal investigator).

Minimum Requirements
• BA degree in psychology, neuroscience, or biology.
• Experience with human subjects research studies, particularly clinical trials.
• Expertise in MATLAB, R, and/or Python.

Professional Competencies
• Excellent oral and written communications skills.
• Highly detail oriented, organized, and efficient.
• Able to work independently while seeking supervision as necessary.
• Outstanding interpersonal skills and creative problem solving are critical.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel, and text messaging.
• Adaptable and flexible with respect to changing daily work responsibilities.
• Passion for knowledge creation and dissemination.

Preferred Qualifications
• Experience with clinical participant recruitment.
• Experience conducting standardized clinical assessments.
• Neuroimaging acquisition and/or analysis experience, preferably fMRI.
• Structured project management experience.
• Experience working in multiple research labs.

Department Summary
About the Social and Affective Neuroscience (SAN) Lab
The mission of the Social and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Oregon is to generate knowledge about goals, motivation, and self-regulation using tools from psychology and neuroscience and translate that knowledge to inform pressing social issues. The purpose of this work is to enrich society and drive innovation in theory, methods, and applications. Our work uses rigorous, open, and interdisciplinary scientific methods while fostering a supportive, robust, and bespoke training environment. All of our research and training activities reflect our deeply held values of knowledge generation and communication, inclusion, and transparency. Current projects focus on healthy eating, cigarette smoking cessation, and physical activity among other health behavior change efforts. More information is available at http://sanlab.uoregon.edu

About the Center for Translational Neuroscience
The Center for Translational Neuroscience (CTN) at the University of Oregon has the mission of translating discoveries in basic neuroscience, psychology, and related disciplines to improve well-being, promote resilience, and mitigate the effects of early adverse experiences on physical and emotional health. CTN houses research projects, science communication initiatives, professional development, and intervention program development, implementation, and evaluation activities. The primary leadership of CTN are faculty in the Department of Psychology, where CTN is housed. Affiliated faculty work in departments across the university. In addition to faculty, CTN is home to numerous postdoctoral research associates, masters and doctoral graduate students, undergraduate research assistants, and University of Oregon employees. More information is available at http://ctn.uoregon.edu

About UO
The University of Oregon (UO) is classified as a Carnegie Doctoral/Research University–Extensive and has a history of substantial research, federal grant funding, and scientific inquiry. The College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), which includes the Department of Psychology where most CTN researchers are based, comprises 40 departments and programs, with 463 tenure-track faculty. The research activity of CAS faculty is the basis for the UO’s status as a Carnegie Research I institution and its membership in the Association of American Universities. In the past 5 years, three faculty have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, three named Sloan Research Fellows, five elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, five named Guggenheim Fellows, seven elected as American Mathematical Society Fellows, and nine elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, with an additional faculty member elected as president of the AAAS. UO provides comprehensive instructional, research, and public service programs that advance scientific and humanistic knowledge. Research programs serve the educational, cultural, and economic needs of the region and the nation. Administrative units provide direct oversight and support for graduate programs, grant proposal submission, research compliance, contracts and grant administration, and research initiatives.

The University of Oregon is proud to offer a robust benefits package to eligible employees, including health insurance, retirement plans and paid time off. For more information about benefits, visit http://hr.uoregon.edu/careers/about-benefits.

The University of Oregon is an equal opportunity, affirmative action institution committed to cultural diversity and compliance with the ADA. The University encourages all qualified individuals to apply, and does not discriminate on the basis of any protected status, including veteran and disability status. The University is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants and employees with disabilities. To request an accommodation in connection with the application process, please contact us at uocareers@uoregon.edu or 541-346-5112.

UO prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, national or ethnic origin, age, religion, marital status, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression in all programs, activities and employment practices as required by Title IX, other applicable laws, and policies. Retaliation is prohibited by UO policy. Questions may be referred to the Title IX Coordinator, Office of Civil Rights Compliance, or to the Office for Civil Rights. Contact information, related policies, and complaint procedures are listed on the statement of non-discrimination.

In compliance with federal law, the University of Oregon prepares an annual report on campus security and fire safety programs and services. The Annual Campus Security and Fire Safety Report is available online at http://police.uoregon.edu/annual-report.

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Open scientific programmer position

Posted on April 18, 2019 by Elliot Berkman

We are hiring a scientific programmer to work on tools for data-intensive projects and also mentor trainees in data science skills. A strong candidate would have a background in data science and teaching/mentorship, a passion for team science, and an interest in psychology and/or neuroscience.

More details are below and a link to apply can be found here.

Position Summary

The Center for Translational Neuroscience (CTN) at the University of Oregon is seeking a full time Programmer to enhance our scientific computation and data science resources. The Programmer will develop tools that will advance our research and that of others in CTN and the Psychology Department such as open source tools for data acquisition, preprocessing, and analysis. The programmer will also be a resource for graduate students and postdocs in the field of data science, providing mentorship and guidance for the research tools they are using, and making it easier for them to learn to program and troubleshoot those tools.

The Programmer will develop open source tools for data acquisition, processing, storage, sharing, and analysis (e.g., custom data pipeline scripts, open repository of tools used Center-wide, etc.). Additional responsibilities will include teaching graduate students and postdoctoral scholars basic programming and data science skills that will accelerate their current research and prepare trainees to use advanced computational tools and approaches in their future work. The Programmer will provide teaching through mentorship, and may also develop and lead workshops.

This is a unique position in a research center and fills an emerging, critical gap in expertise on interdisciplinary scientific teams. As such, the programmer will have the opportunity to work on a variety of scientific problems and with several different teams of researchers around campus.

This position is funded 2.5 years, with the possibility of extension if additional funding is identified.

Minimum Requirements

  • Two years of full-time programming experience (professionally or extensively during graduate training).
  • BA or BS in psychology, neuroscience, statistics, computer science, or related field.

Professional Competencies

  • Demonstrated interest in science.
  • Demonstrated skills in teaching or mentorship, particularly the ability to teach and work with non-expert coders.
  • Expertise in Python.
  • Familiarity with open-source software for neuroimaging analysis (e.g., BIDS apps, SPM, fsl).
  • Demonstrated abilities in using shared code repositories (e.g., GitHub).

Preferred Qualifications

  • Programming experience in academic research setting.
  • Extensive teaching or mentorship experience.
  • Established record of applying machine learning or other multivariate techniques to scientific data.
  • Experience with containerization systems (e.g., Docker).
  • Expertise with R.
  • Experience interfacing with high-performance computational grids.

About the Center for Translational Neuroscience
The Center for Translational Neuroscience (CTN) at the University of Oregon has the mission of translating discoveries in basic neuroscience, psychology, and related disciplines to improve well-being, promote resilience, and mitigate the effects of early adverse experiences on physical and emotional health. CTN houses research projects, science communication initiatives, professional development, and intervention program development, implementation, and evaluation activities. The primary leadership of CTN are faculty in the Department of Psychology, where CTN is housed. Affiliated faculty work in departments across the university. In addition to faculty, CTN is home to numerous postdoctoral research associates, masters and doctoral graduate students, undergraduate research assistants, and University of Oregon employees. More information is available at http://ctn.uoregon.edu

About the Social and Affective Neuroscience (SAN) Lab
The mission of the Social and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Oregon is to generate knowledge about goals, motivation, and self-regulation using tools from psychology and neuroscience and translate that knowledge to inform inform pressing social issues. The purpose of this work is to enrich society and drive innovation in theory, methods, and applications. Our work uses rigorous, open, and interdisciplinary scientific methods while fostering a supportive, robust, and bespoke training environment. All of our research and training activities reflect our deeply held values of knowledge generation and communication, inclusion, and transparency. More information is available at http://sanlab.uoregon.edu

About UO
The University of Oregon (UO) is classified as a Carnegie Doctoral/Research University–Extensive and has a history of substantial research, federal grant funding, and scientific inquiry. The College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), which includes the Department of Psychology where most CTN researchers are based, comprises 40 departments and programs, with 463 tenure-track faculty. The research activity of CAS faculty is the basis for the UO’s status as a Carnegie Research I institution and its membership in the Association of American Universities. In the past 5 years, three faculty have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, three named Sloan Research Fellows, five elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, five named Guggenheim Fellows, seven elected as American Mathematical Society Fellows, and nine elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, with an additional faculty member elected as president of the AAAS. UO provides comprehensive instructional, research, and public service programs that advance scientific and humanistic knowledge. Research programs serve the educational, cultural, and economic needs of the region and the nation. Administrative units provide direct oversight and support for graduate programs, grant proposal submission, research compliance, contracts and grant administration, and research initiatives.

 

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New OHSU-UO Collaborative Seed Grant

Posted on September 15, 2018 by Elliot Berkman

The SAN Lab and the Center for Translational Neuroscience have won a grant to pursue collaborations on translational neuroscience projects with our colleagues at Oregon Health and Science University through the OHSU-UO Partnership project.

Read more about our project, “Translational Neuroscience of Substance Use and Behavior Change Across the Lifespan” here. Congrats, team!

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Congrats Drs. Kahn and Livingston!

Posted on July 4, 2018 by Elliot Berkman

We are beyond thrilled to congratulate our latest lab alumni: Dr. Lauren E. Kahn and Dr. Jordan L. Livingston! We are so proud of everything you’ve done and where you’re going with your scholarship! Congratulations, Lauren and Jordan!

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Berkman Wins Early Career Award

Posted on May 2, 2018 by Elliot Berkman

Lab Director Dr. Berkman has won a 2018 Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions from the Association of Psychological Science! The announcement states that the Award “celebrates the many new and cutting edge ideas coming out of the most creative and promising investigators who embody the future of psychological science.” In his interview, Dr. Berkman writes about what winning the award means to him:

On a personal level, winning this award is compelling evidence that Imposter Syndrome exists at every career stage. It is humbling to be among the deeply impressive group of past and current winners. I do not feel I belong on the list! Professionally, I am glad that the type of work I do at the interface of social neuroscience and health and clinical psychology is appreciated by the wider field. I hope to use the award as an opportunity to draw attention to the innovative and impactful science that is happening in translational neuroscience. We think of the Center for Translational Neuroscience as only the most recent incarnation of a long tradition of creative integration between neuroscience and psychology at the UO led by people such as Jerry Patterson, Mike Posner, Steve Keele, Mary Rothbart, Helen Neville, and Don Tucker.

Congratulations, Dr. Berkman!

 

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We Are Hiring a Research Assistant!

Posted on April 25, 2018 by Elliot Berkman

The Social and Affective Neuroscience Lab is hiring a full time RA to work on our healthy eating intervention. The perfect person would be a bright, motivated, and conscientious postbac with an interest in translational neuroscience. We’ll begin reviewing applications at the end of May.

About the position

The Research Assistant is responsible for managing day-to-day scheduling, coordination, tracking, recruitment, and retention of subjects. The Research Assistant runs assessment sessions including neuroimaging, conducts telephone interviews, and works closely with the project coordinator and Principal Investigator to achieve project goals. Supervision and training of undergraduate staff and ongoing interaction with the internal review board for human subjects’ protection is also expected.

Full position description here: http://careers.uoregon.edu/cw/en-us/job/522124/research-assistant

About the project

This project, “Devaluing energy-dense foods for cancer control,” adopts a translational neuroscience approach to compare the mechanisms of action of two programs to change eating behavior. Excessive eating of energy-dense and obesity are risk factors for a range of cancers. There are programs to reduce intake of these foods and weight loss, but the effects of the programs rarely last. This project tests whether altering the value of cancer-risk foods can create lasting change and uses neuroimaging to compare the efficacy of two programs to engage the valuation system on a neural level. Results will establish the pathways through which the programs work and suggest specific treatments for individuals based on a personalized profile.

About the lab

Research in the SAN Lab investigates how motivational and cognitive factors contribute to goal pursuit using methods from social psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Our research program is guided by the belief that studying the intersection of basic neural processes, cognition, affective and motivational systems, and long-term behavioral outcomes is the best way to understand self-regulation and to develop novel interventions to help people be successful in their goal pursuit.

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How Does Meditation Pain Relief Work?

Posted on April 11, 2018 by Elliot Berkman

Below is a guest post by Lisa May describing her latest paper, “Enhancement of Meditation Analgesia by Opioid Antagonist in Experienced Meditators”, which is now out in Psychosomatic Medicine.

———

People who practice meditation for a long time get pain relief from meditation, but scientists don’t yet understand how the brain creates this pain relief. I ran a study to test whether meditation reduces pain by using the brain’s natural morphine, endogenous opioids. I thought that endogenous opioids might cause meditation pain relief because other forms of psychological pain relief, such as placebo effects, rely on endogenous opioids. I tested this idea by examining the effects of meditation on pain while endogenous opioids were turned on and again while they were turned off. If the pain relief people get when they meditate goes away when endogenous opioids are off, then I could infer that opioids cause meditation pain relief. That is what I thought would happen.

To test this idea, I worked with 32 healthy adults who had a long-standing meditation practice. These meditators were kind enough to let me deliver short bursts of pain to their hands, and then they reported their pain levels. We repeated the pain before and during meditation. Most of the people in my study (85%) felt less pain while they were meditating than when they were not.

This same group of meditators then did two more days of testing comparing their pain before and during meditation, but with a twist. On one day, I gave them a drug called Naloxone that blocks the brain’s ability to use opioids, meaning that the meditators couldn’t feel the effects of their natural morphine for a couple hours. On the other day, I gave them saline as a control because saline has no effect on how the brain processes pain. They didn’t know which day they got which drug, and I didn’t either.

Because Naloxone turns off the effects of endogenous opioids, I figured it would to one of two things. Naloxone could turn off pain relief during meditation, indicating that opioids cause meditation pain relief. Or, Naloxone could have no effect on people’s pain, indicating that meditation pain relief is caused by some other neurotransmitter. This drug has been used in a lot of pain research studies, and one of those two things always happens – either pain relief goes away, or there is no change in pain.

However, I found something totally new and surprising. Naloxone made the pain relief during meditation stronger! The actual results are shown in the figure below. This is the first time that a high dose of Naloxone has made pain relief stronger in a research study. What does this finding mean? First, it shows that meditation pain relief does not rely on endogenous opioids. The results also suggest that studying meditation could teach us important things about how the brain processes pain. Finally, we need to do more research to fully understand why turning off endogenous opioids made pain relief stronger. This study might teach us more about how to relieve pain without opioids.

Meditation pain relief enhanced by opioid blockade

Full citation info:

May, L. M., Kosek, P., Zeidan, F., & Berkman, E. T. (in press). Enhancement of meditation analgesia by opioid antagonist in experienced meditators. Psychosomatic Medicine. [pdf] [osf]

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