Apkar V. Apkarian, PhD - Pain & Placebo
Dr. Apkar Apkarian, professor of physiology, anesthesiology, and physical medicine and rehabilitation talks about chronic pain and placebo effect on The FitMind Podcast episode 79.
You can also listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or any other major podcast platform. Here it is in video format, if you’d prefer:
Episode Overview
Apkar V. Apkarian, PhD is a professor of physiology, anesthesiology, and physical medicine and rehabilitation at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.
He has been studying pain for more than two decades and is a pioneer in the use of fMRI to study the neurochemistry of the brain. Dr. Apkarian's research has increasingly focused on chronic pain, including the strategic use of placebo treatment.
In this episode, we discuss the placebo effect, how pain works in the brain, and susceptibility to chronic pain and placebo response.
Hope you enjoy!
P.S. — If you’re serious about starting or deepening your meditation practice, check out the FitMind meditation app.
Apkar V. Apkarian, PhD Bio
Dr. Apkarian has a master's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California and a PhD in neuroscience from the State University of New York Upstate Medical University. He is also the head of OpenPain, an open-access data-sharing platform for brain imaging studies of human pain.
Show Notes
0:00 | Introduction to Apkar V. Apkarian
2:59 | How Pain Works in the Brain
5:48 | Chronic Pain vs. Acute Pain
10:45 | Conscious Perception and Noxious Information
13:29 | Brain’s Interpretation of Pain
14:55 | Process of Studying Pain in the Brain
20:00 | Personality Risk Factors for Developing Chronic Pain
28:20 | Treatment for Chronic Pain
30:07 | Placebo Effect Explained
35:28 | Predicting Who Responds to Placebo Treatment
38:50 | Maximizing Placebo Effect
44:24 | Placebo in the Brain
46:00 | Language Can Predict Placebo Responsiveness
48:26 | Rapid Fire Questions