Katja Wiech
University of Oxford, UK
Katja Wiech studied psychology at the Universities of Kiel and Düsseldorf, Germany, followed by a PhD in Tübingen, Germany, under the supervision of Prof. Niels Birbaumer. She joined the research group of Prof. Ray Dolan at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging in London, UK. Here, she focused on cognitive-affective influences on pain perception and neural processing using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Dr. Wiech continued her research as a part of the Pain Imaging Neuroscience Group, University of Oxford, led by Prof. Irene Tracey, and subsequently established her own research group within the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences and the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging (WIN) at the University of Oxford.
Dr Wiech’s current research focuses on the influence of beliefs on the perception and neural processing of pain and aims to characterize the processes that integrate beliefs with incoming sensory information and the failure of optimal integration in biased perception. Her research uses a multi-methods approach combining different non-invasive neuroimaging techniques including functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging with behavioral and autonomic measures.
