Award for Dr. Livia Asan: The scientist and assistant physician for neurology from the SFB/TRR 289 has received the Felgenhauer Research Award 2024. The Foundation for the Promotion of Young Neuroscientists thus honors Asan's work on nocebo mechanisms in functional neurological disorders (FNS).
Do patients with functional neurological disorders show increased nocebo effects? Dr. Livia Asan received the award for her research on this question at the 97th Congress of the German Neurological Society in Berlin.
People affected by FNS suffer from typical neurological symptoms such as paralysis, seizures or sensory disturbances, to which, however, no sufficient physical cause can be assigned. There are major parallels to nocebo effects, which Asan is researching in project A01 in Prof. Ulrike Bingel's working group at Essen University Hospital. For example, people with FNS tend to perceive physical stimuli in a more negative and disease-related way, and negative expectations have a particularly strong influence on their state of health.
Although FNS occur frequently in everyday clinical practice, they are often recognized late and are poorly understood. It is therefore important to research this group of disorders in more detail and to expand treatment options. If nocebo effects really do contribute to the cause of FNS, this could open up important new treatment options for affected patients.
The Felgenhauer Research Prize is endowed with 10,000 euros. Dr. Livia Asan will use this support to expand her translational research project, which she is conducting in parallel in the Bingellab at Essen University Hospital and in Prof. Mark Edwards' working group at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King's College London.