Capita Selecta - Webinar
26 maggio 2023, ore 17:30

Meccanismi dell’effetto placebo
Prof.ssa Luana Colloca

Biography

Dr. Luana Colloca is a physician-scientist and an MPower Distinguished Professor at University of Maryland School of Nursing, Baltimore. Dr. Colloca hold an MD from University of Magna Graecia of Catanzaro, a PhD in Neuroscience from University of Turin and a Master in Bioethics. Additionally, Dr. Colloca completed a post-doc training at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden and a senior research fellowship at the Department of Bioethics, Clinical Center and the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health at National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, US. Dr. Colloca received several awards such as the IASP Wall Patrick Award for basic research on pain mechanisms and was recently recognized with the University of Maryland MPower Distinguished Professorship Award.

Currently, Dr. Colloca leads an NIH-funded research portfolio based on phenotypes of placebo effects in Temporomandibular Disorders, neural mechanisms of observationally-induced hypoalgesia and molecular mechanisms and applications of virtual reality as a nonpharmacological intervention. Dr. Colloca and her team have discovered relevant mechanisms of placebo effects from learning effects to the vasopressin related role, from mechanisms of virtual reality for pain reduction to in-depth psychological, genetic and clinical phenotypes of placebo responders. Dr. Colloca has authored over 165 peer-reviewed articles, edited several books. Findings from her and The Colloca Lab’s have been published in top-ranked journals including JAMA, NEJM, Biological Psychiatry, Pain, and Lancet Neurology and have raised interest in the scientific community with over 13000 citations.

Dr. Colloca has given over 280 invited Lectures and she has been defined as a ‘public intellectual’ for creating new knowledge and a strong legacy on placebo translational research, improving education around pain and its modulation, and translating science into the society with the goal to benefit people and their quality of lives. Dr. Colloca has appeared in a variety of stories for The National Geographic, The New Scientist, Washington Post, Science daily, Boston Globe, The New Yorker, Nature, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, News and World Reports and USA Today magazines among others.

Executive summary

• Appointments: Faculty since 2009, starting as Senior Fellow (equivalent to Assistant Professor) at NIH. Moved in December 2014 to University of Maryland School of Nursing as a tenure-track Associate Professor. Promotion to the tenure A/Professor status since July 2018. Full Professor 2021-Present: MPower Distinguished Professor.
• Publications: 192 publications with >13,300 total citations (Google Scholar), 1 paper cited over 1300 times and 3 papers cited over 500 times. H-index = 56. Journals include Science, Nature Reviews Primers, New England Journal of Medicine, Nature Neuroscience, Lancet Neurology, JAMA, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Psychosomatics Therapeutics, Journal of Neuroscience, and PAIN.
• Funding: Currently principal investigator on 3 NIH R01s, an R13 and an R21 including donations from Samueli Foundation and the TRR and on other collaborative grants.
• Awards: Awards include the 2003 Lega Italiana Malattie Piramidalied Extrapiramidali (LIMPE) Award , 2005 Award of AssociazioneItaliana Studio Dolore (AISD), 2006 American Psychosomatic Society (APS) Award for Young Neuroscientist, 2006 PsychoNeuroImmunology Research Society (PNIRS) Award for Neuroscientist, 2008 Dubner International Research Prize – International Association for Study of Pain, 2009 European Federation of IASP Chapter (EFIC), 2010 Gold medal for research – Italian Sport Federation (FCI), 2010 NIH Clinical Center High Performance Award, 2011 NIH Clinical Center High Performance Award, 2012 NIH Clinical Center High Performance Award, 2016 Stephen B. Milam Young Investigator Award - Temporomandibular Joint Ankylosis (TMJA), 2016 Patrick D. Wall International Young Investigator Award for Basic Science – International Association for Study of Pain, 2017 UMSON School of Nursing Distinguished Scholarship Award, 2018 Toekenningsbrief – Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie Van Wetenschappen (KNAW), 2021 Inaugural MPower Distinguished Professorship Award – University of Maryland System.
• Service: International. Service includes editorial board service on 3 major journals for PAIN, President of the PAIN and Placebo SIG for the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), Steering member and treasurer for the International Society for Interdisciplinary Studies of Placebo (SIPS). UM Service: TL1 Program Director, IRB voting member, Covid-19 Task force member. UMSON service: ATP member and Chair (2022), PhD past member, MS past member.
• Outreach: >280 invited talks at universities/international conferences since 2004 including several Plenary and Keynote lectures and the Tedx talk. Are placebos the solution? Tackling the opioid epidemic in the next few decades.
  Invited talks in Pain management, Psychology, Neuroscience, Cognitive Science, Psychiatry, Neurology, Anesthesiology, Bioethics, Rheumatology, Marketing, and others. Media outreach: Featured in New York Times, The Economist, PBS special on healing, The National Geographic, the Boston Globe, The Discovery Channel, Le Monde etc.

1. 2018 (April 11) – Erik Vance – PBS Newshour - The placebo effect’s role in healing, explained https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/the-placebo-effects-role-in-healing-explained
2. 2018 (April 11) - Nsikan Akpan - PBS Newshour - The science of using your expectations to relieve pain. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-science-of-using-your-expectations-to-relieve-pain

PODCASTS

1. 2020 (Jan 23, 2020) Phil Parker – Mind-body connection https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/mind-body-connection-with-dr-phil-parker/id1493527932

2. 2020 (May 14, 2020) – Walt Thiessen – LOA Today – Placebo, nocebo and COVID-19 - link to the mp3 file of the actual podcast episode itself: https://www.loatoday.net/podlove/file/3477/s/download/c/select-show/2020/loa1219-placebo-nocebo-and-covid-19-with-dr-luana-colloca.mp3
Link to the YouTube video: https://youtu.be/XXz6qURGqRg

3. March 20, 2021. The Helix Center, NYC. - Panacea or Poison: Placebos and Nocebos in Modern Medicine -

4. May 5, 2021 - Vox: – Brian Resnick – Vox https://open.spotify.com/episode/3D55ZKHS9llnpUdPo4lCMx?si=a4f07d5e91d74411&nd=1

5. June 17, 2021 – Tim Norton – Hard Conversations - What a Harvard Placebos Expert has to say about Improving Erections https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/hardconversations/id1395956643?i=1000525596700

6. June 29, 2021 – Melanie Morin – International Continence Society – Canada https://www.ics.org/podcast/3
ICS | Chronic pelvic pain mechanism, neuroscience education and physiologic in clinical practice

7. October, 2021 – Bradley Block – Ethics of Recommending Placebo with Luana Colloca, MD, PhD https://physiciansguidetodoctoring.com/

8. Feb 3, 2022 – 9’ to Thrive with Navin – Navin https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/9-to-thrive-with-navin/id1522580218?i=1000549874059