Dr. Marta Andreatta

Full member: January 2007 - December 2009

Speaker of the members: 2008-2009

Coordinator of RTG 1253 GK-Emotions: 2010-2014

Dissertation title: Emotional reactions after event learning.
Abstract: I investigated a process at the heart of associative learning: Event-timing. I demonstrated that in humans painful events do not only have punishing effects, but can also act in a reward-like fashion. Thus, a stimulus presented before (forward conditioning) a painful unconditioned stimulus (US) acquired aversive properties as indicated by startle response potentiation and amygdala activation. A stimulus presented after the US (backward conditioning) acquired appetitive properties as indicated by startle response attenuation and striatum activation. However, backward conditioned stimulus (CS) was explicitly rated as aversive. This rift between explicit and implicit valence may contribute to understand paradoxical and psychiatric states.

Principal investigator:

Prof. Dr. Paul Pauli
Department Psychologie I, Marcusstr. 9-11, 97070 Würzburg

https://www.psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de/bioklin/personen/pauli-paul/prof-dr-paul-pauli/

Current position:

Department of Psychology I, Marcusstraße 9-11, 97070 Würzburg

https://www.psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de/bioklin/personen/andreatta-marta/dottssa-marta-andreatta/