Applying the Power of the Mind to Manage Pain: Insights from Neuroimaging Research
Presented by: Jian Kong, MD, Director, Neuroimaging Applications to Pain, Alternative Medicine & Placebo, Dept. Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital
Healing is a complicated process. Theoretically, it is made up of three components: the self-healing properties (of the body), the non-specific effects of treatment (via the mind), and the specific effect of physical or pharmacological intervention (through medicine). The final outcome is the combination of all three components.
In his talk, Dr. Kong will present:
- brain circuits associated with acute and chronic pain,
- the role of expectancy in alternative and conventional medicine and how to apply the mind to enhance the therapeutic effects of treatment, and
- how the mind and body can interact to produce treatment effects using Tai Chi, Baduanjin, and imagery as examples.
Download Flier Here
Date: Tuesday, April, 2nd, 2019
Time: 800am-9:00am (followed by coffee-hour)
Venue: Bornstein Family Amphitheater, 45 Francis Street, BWH, Boston, MA
Speaker Bio
Dr. Jian Kong is an Associate Professor at the Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School. He is the director of the Neuroimaging Applications to Pain, Alternative Medicine & Placebo program in the Department of Psychiatry at MGH.
His research focuses on pain perception and modulation, placebo and nocebo effects, the brain pathophysiology of disorders such as chronic pain, depression, age-related memory decline, and autism, and how non-pharmacological treatments (e.g., acupuncture, mind-body interventions, auricular vagus nerve stimulation, transcranial direct current stimulation) can modulate brain circuitry in these disorders using brain imaging tools such as MRI/fMRI, PET, and MEG.
Dr. Kong has published over 145 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters in the above fields.