Special seminar by Dr Michelle Garagnani
Date and time: 18 April 2024, 11am to 1pm
Talk location: Redmond Barry Building, Room 1007
Light refreshments location: Peter Hall BBQ space
Talk details:
Title: "Economic Choices Uncover Pain Differences Across Individuals"
Abstract: Existing measures of pain are inaccurate and difficult to compare across individuals. This impairs the reliability of clinical trials, can lead to inadequate pain management, and might contribute to the ongoing opioid epidemic. We propose and validate a measure of acute pain that is comparable across individuals. In three randomized, pre-registered controlled trials, 330 healthy participants were randomly allocated to receive either a high- or a low-pain stimulus (electrical pulses or contact heat; single-blindly) or the same stimulus after having double-blindly received a topical analgesic or a placebo. Participants then rated the acute pain using established scales (Numerical Rating, Visual Analogue, and General Labelled Magnitude) and our new method. The latter quantifies the negative value of pain in monetary terms by letting participants repeatedly choose whether to receive a known painful stimulus and be compensated with varying monetary amounts, or obtain a smaller, fixed compensation but no painful stimulus. In all three trials the proposed measure was better able to distinguish whether participants were allocated to the more painful condition compared to previous methods (all p<0.0001; all effect sizes >1.7). The results were confirmed with probit regressions (all R^2>0.8) and Bayesian factor analyses (all Bayesian factors above 60). The proposed method is a complementary approach to existing procedures and has better predictive ability to measure pain across individuals.
Speaker bio:
Michele is a neuroeconomist studying how basic processes interact to produce complex economic behaviour. His research aims to formulate and test models of human behaviour which accurately predict choices and process data (response times, neural activity, etc.), with the ultimate aim of helping people make better decisions. In particular, he is developing and testing new methods to reveal preferences and their stability. His research strategy combines both theoretical and empirical methods. He has worked in several subfields including decisions under risk, intertemporal choices, pain, investment behaviour, moral decision making, and voting behaviour. He is familiar with state-of-the-art research methods from different disciplines, examples include structural estimations, machine learning, EEG, and novel revealed preference methods using process data. Michele received my PhD from the University of Zurich under the supervision of Professor Carlos Alós-Ferrer and Professor Ernst Fehr.
https://www.unimelb.edu.au/cbmm/about-us/team/michele-garagnani