Psychobiological research and treatment of chronic pain – endowed professorship at RWTH Aachen University

The professorship focuses on the psychological and neurobiological foundations of chronic, especially neuropathic pain. Chronic pain should be understood in its heterogeneity as an interaction of psychological factors, sympathetic overactivation, and cerebral processing, in order to enable better and more comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms as well as innovative and optimized therapeutic influence. The aim is to better understand the subjective perception processes of those affected by chronic pain as a multimodal phenomenon, both on a psychological and neuronal level, and to examine their variability. The focus of the professorship is the research of effective and innovative (psycho-)therapeutic concepts. This ranges from testing non-invasive stimulation methods to the role of personality factors of patient and therapist in the context of psychological treatment.

Milestones

• Establishment of a working group and psychophysiological laboratory in the newly founded Scientific Center for Neuropathic Pain (SNC-Aachen).

Teaching:

• Deafferentation pain. Lecture in the Pain Medicine block in the Human Medicine program, WS23/24
• Pain in the clinical-psychological context: Syndromes, pathomechanisms, therapeutic approaches. Extra-curricular seminar in the Master’s program Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, WS23/24
• Biological Psychology I. Lecture in the Bachelor’s program Psychology, SS24
• Lecture tours to present the institute and its work

Outlook 2025

Concentration on 2 main topics with expansion of research, thesis work, and laboratory activities:

• Nociception and pain as two connected but distinct phenomena
• Psyche and somatics as inseparable unity in (chronic) pain