Prof. (em) Dr. Dr. Burkhard Bromm celebrated his 80th birthday on June 30, 2015. The celebrant studied physics, mathematics and medicine in Tübingen, Hamburg, Kiel and Stockholm. He completed his habilitation in physiology at the University of Kiel, received a call to the Ruhr University in Bochum and in 1974 became director of the Department of Neurophysiology at the University of Hamburg. From 1977 to 2000 he was managing director of the Physiological Institute at the Eppendorf University Hospital in Hamburg. His scientific focus was on the analysis of central nervous pain mechanisms and neuronal correlates of pain. Using electrophysiological analyses, he gained groundbreaking new insights into the information processing of pain and the neurological basis of awareness of pain-related brain activity.

On the occasion of his 80th birthday, a symposium was held on July 3, 2015 by the Hamburg Academy of Sciences in honor of the jubilarian

Pain and consciousness

instead of. From today's perspective, the symposium should explore the fact that patients can modulate pain psychologically and mentally. The focus was on neurophysiological mechanisms with which therapeutic methods such as cognitive hypnotherapy (hypnotic induction, relaxation, dissociation, analgesia, protected place, distraction, pain description), autosuggestion, placebo or nocebo can affect pain. The active, free will-controlled change in the perception of pain should also become an issue. The symposium thus pushed the boundaries of the “body-soul problem”. The jubilee wanted to focus on this central theme of being human at the symposium. Prof. Dr. Dr. Bromm explained: “At 80 you are allowed to do that, if at all. If not now then when?".

After a welcome from the Dean of the Medical Faculty of the University Hospital Hamburg, Prof. Dr. Dr. Uwe Koch-Gromus, followed by greetings from Prof. Dr. Jürgen Schwarz, Center for Molecular Neurobiology Hamburg, Prof. Dr. Heimo Ehmke, Institute for Molecular and Integrative Physiology, University Hospital Hamburg, Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Jelkmann, President of the German Physiological Society, Prof. Dr. Rolf-Detlef Treede, President of the International Association for the Study of Pain and Prof. Dr. Ing. Prof. EH Edwin J. Kreuzer, President of the Academy of Sciences in Hamburg.

The subsequent symposium was led by Prof. Dr. Jörn Hennig Wolf, spokesman for the Academy of Sciences in Hamburg – working group “Rational decisions on uncertain foundations” moderated.

Prof. Dr. Hartmut Göbel, Kiel Pain Clinic, introduced the clinical significance of voluntary and non-willful effects of the cognitive and affective influence on pain. Using clinical examples and scientific findings, he illustrated the central importance of the evaluative, affective and cognitive components of the pain experience. Contemporary pain therapy is based on replacing the previous linear-causal model of pain. Physiological, biochemical, behavioral medicine and subjective cognitive mechanisms, including system-theoretical processing, determine the conscious experience of pain and must be the focus of practical therapy. Only in this way can the initiation of pain disorders, the maintenance and chronicity of pain be understood and effectively treated.

Dr. Falk Eippert, University of Oxford, explained experimental studies of the effect of placebo effects during nociceptive stimulation with laser stimuli. He also supported these findings with brain imaging experiments. With his findings he built a bridge between clinical observations and neurophysiological research. Falk Eippert and his colleagues used functional magnetic resonance imaging to observe the spinal cords of test subjects as they took part in a painful experiment. The researchers found, among other things, that the nerve cells of the spinal cord reacted less actively to heat pain of the same intensity if the test subject expected pain relief after receiving a placebo.

Prof. Dr. Rolf-Detlef Treede, Chair of Neurophysiology, University of Heidelberg-Mannheit and President of the International Association for the Study of Pain, explained the importance of EEG and MEG signals for conscious processes in pain. He presented new findings on cognitive potentials that are reduced under anesthesia and increased by attention or distraction. He explained in detail the brain structures that are responsible for this and discussed the neurophysiological correlates of pain and itching.

Prof. Dr. Dr. Gerhard Roth, Institute for Brain Research at the University of Bremen, President of the German National Academic Foundation from 2003 to 2011, discussed findings on the neurophysiology of consciousness and free will as well as conscious and voluntary decisions. He explained the structures and functions of the limbic system as well as the neural basis of affects and emotions. The unconscious largely determines consciousness; It arises ontogenetically before consciousness and very early on establishes the basic structures of the way we deal with ourselves and our environment. The emotional memory of experience has the first and the last word in the creation of our wishes and intentions to act and in the final decision about their realization.

In his lecture on the topic “On the freedom to suppress your pain”, the celebrant himself discussed the possibilities of free will to change pain. Pain can distract attention from all other experiences. Building on clinical and experimental results, he explained how the process of pain sensations can be modified and which neural mechanisms are the basis for this. Numerous findings have now proven that the physically measurable neurological processes required for a voluntary and conscious action have already begun long before the experiencer has the feeling of making a conscious decision. The idea of ​​free will is therefore also the product of neurological processes that have long since taken place before the action itself is conscious and carried out.

The explanations led to the limits of human consciousness and the foundations of the individual's responsibility for feelings, freedom and will.

The symposium concluded with a festive evening on the Rickmer Rickmers.

The following video shows the explanations of the brain researcher Prof. Dr. Dr. Bromm on freedom of will on the occasion of an earlier lecture at the Hermann Ehlers Academy in Kiel.