Siri Leknes

Siri Leknes is a Professor of Social and Affective Neuroscience at the University of Oslo, Norway and a Senior Researcher at Oslo University Hospital. Her lab, the Leknes Affective Brain lab (LAB lab) studies how the brain and body give rise to pleasurable and painful feelings, and how these feelings are connected to decisions and behaviour. One interdisciplinary project centred on the benefits of acute pain and was awarded The Daniel M. Wegner Theoretical Innovation Prize in social/personality psychology.

LAB lab's main methodology is experimental psychopharmacology in healthy humans, often centred on understanding how opioids modulate pain and pleasure. In addition, the LAB lab studies modulation of pleasure and pain in opioid-treated clinical populations with and without chronic pain and substance use disorder. LAB lab is currently funded by an ERC grant to study state-dependent effects of opioids and their relation to social support, stress and dopamine, as well as Regional Health Authority funding for clinical studies.