Placebo Imaging Consortium

An international consortium to foster the understanding of the placebo-effect with neuroimaing.

Since 2015

Consortium Leaders

Ulrike Bingel, Tor Wager, Matthias Zunhammer, Balint Kincses, and Tamas Spisák.

Consortium Members

Lauren Atlas, PhD, National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health and National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, and National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health, Baltimore, Maryland, United States

Fabrizio Benedetti, MD, University of Turin, Turin, Italy and Plateau Rosà Labs, Plateau Rosà, Switzerland

Christian Büchel, MD, University Medical Center Hamburg–Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany

Jae Chan Choi, MD, PhD, Graduate School of Seoul Cyber University, Seoul, South Korea; Yonsei University, Wonju College of Medicine, Wonju, South Korea, Cham Psychology Brain Health Institute, Seoul, South Korea

Luana Colloca, MD, PhD, University of Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland, United States

Davide Duzzi, PhD, Università di Bologna, Italy

Falk Eippert, PhD, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany

Dan-Mikael Ellingsen, PhD, Department of Physics and Computation al Radiology, Division of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Oslo University Hospital; School of Health Sciences, Kristiania University of Applied Sciences, Norway

Sigrid Elsenbruch, PhD, Department for Neurology and Center for Translational and Behavioral Neuroscience, University Hospital Essen; Department of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany

Stephan Geuter, PhD, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, United States

Arvina Grahl, PhD, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Harvard Medical School, United States

Helena Hartmann, PhD, Clinical Neurosciences, Department for Neurology and Center for Translational and Behavioral Neuroscience, University Hospital Essen, Essen, Germany

Ted J. Kaptchuk, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Simon S. Kessner, MD, University Medical Center Hamburg–Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany

Irving Kirsch, PhD, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

Leonie Koban, PhD, Center for Neuroscience Research, France

Jian Kong, MD, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

Claus Lamm, PhD, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

Siri Leknes, PhD, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

Karin Meissner, PhD, Coburg University of Applied Sciences, Germany

Marian van der Meulen, PhD, Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences, Université du Luxembourg, Luxembourg

Alexa Müllner-Huber, PhD, PhD, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

Fausta Lui, MD, University of Modena e Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy

Carlo A. Porro, MD, PhD, University of Modena e Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy

Markus Rütgen, PhD, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

Lieven A. Schenk, PhD, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany

Julia Schmid, PhD, Essen University Hospital, Essen, Germany

Nina Theysohn, MD, Essen University Hospital, Essen, Germany

Irene Tracey, PhD, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

Nathalie Wrobel, PhD, Karolinska Institute, Solna, Sweden

Fadel Zeidan, PhD, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States

Publications

Zunhammer M, Bingel U, Wager TD, Placebo Imaging Consortium. Placebo effects on the neurologic pain signature: a meta-analysis of individual participant functional magnetic resonance imaging data. JAMA Neurology. 2018 Nov 1;75(11):1321-30. doi: 10.1001/jamaneurol.2018.2017

Zunhammer M, Bingel U, Wager TD, Placebo Imaging Consortium. Laterality and Stimulation Bias in Meta-analysis of Placebo Responses—Reply. JAMA Neurology. 2019 May 20. doi: 10.1001/jamaneurol.2019.1232

Zunhammer M, Spisák T, Wager TD, Bingel U., Placebo Imaging Consortium. Meta-analysis of neural systems underlying placebo analgesia from individual participant fMRI data. Nature Communications. 2021 Mar 2;12(1):1-1. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-21179-3

Preprints

Spisák T, Hartmann H, Zunhammer M, Kincses B, Wiech K, Wager TD, Bingel U., Placebo Imaging Consortium. Meta-analytic evidence for distinct neural correlates of conditioned vs. verbally induced placebo analgesia. BioRxiv. 2025 May 21; doi: