Mats Lekander

Mats Lekander

Professor
Telephone: +46852482445
Visiting address: Nobels väg 9, 17165 Stockholm
Postal address: K8 Klinisk neurovetenskap, K8 Psykologi Lekander, 171 77 Stockholm
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About me

  • Mats Lekander is a professor of health psychology at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience and researches the connection between the immune system, behaviour and the brain, so-called psychoneuroimmunology, as well as mechanisms and treatment related to sleep and stress. He is also the director of theOsher Center for Integrative Health at Karolinska Institutet. 

Articles

All other publications

Grants

  • Riksbankens Jubileumsfond
    1 January 2024 - 31 January 2026
    The question of how emotions are triggered remains obscure. A recent influential theory is built on predicting coding, which states that the brain makes predictions and constantly compares these predictions with the actual incoming sensory information. The active inference theory of emotions posits that emotions arise when there is a mismatch between the bodily (interoceptive) sensations and what was predicted by the brain, i.e. when interoceptive prediction errors occur. This theory is extremely relevant for emotional disorders linked with infections (e.g. post-COVID), since infections can trigger various and intense interoceptive signals that can be difficult to predict by the brain. In this project, we will apply the active inference theory of emotions in an ecologically relevant model of infection, using an innovative experimental approach. We will go beyond the existing correlational designs by applying a causal intervention eliciting real sickness symptoms, and manipulating interoceptive prediction errors directly, in 240 participants. We hypothesize that emotional responses will arise during sickness when interoceptive prediction errors occur, i.e. when interoceptive sensations violate predictions. This project will therefore provide critical information to understand how individuals' predictions shape sickness behavior, and how emotions are generated in infection-related conditions, which could open new therapies for mood disorders associated with immune activation.
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2024 - 31 December 2027
    Internet-delivered cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) for social anxiety disorder is an evidence-based treatment in regular health care. Still, a considerable proportion of treated patients do not respond. There is also a debate on the importance of patients expectations’ for therapeutic outcomes. However, experimental evidence is lacking to answer this question. Our aim is thus to investigate the placebo response in social anxiety disorder, and the link between initial placebo responsiveness and subsequent outcome of CBT. First, we will manipulate expectations of anxiety relief. A benzodiazepine (a common anti-anxiety drug) will be administered with correct or incorrect information about clinical efficacy during a public speaking task. Self-reports and moment-to-moment variability in neural response will be measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during the manipulation of expectations. The balanced placebo design allows us to dissect the total treatment effect into its components: drug, placebo, and interactions between the two. Second, patients undergo internet-delivered CBT after completing the placebo experiments. This project aims to unravel expectations´ influence on treatment response, and has a two-fold significance, 1) the scientific understanding of the neural mechanisms of treatment expectations, central for placebo, and 2) the development of pre-treatment predictors of CBT outcome which could improve precision in clinical decision making.
  • Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation
    1 January 2024 - 31 December 2026
    The question of how emotions are triggered remains obscure. A recent influential theory is built on predicting coding, which states that the brain makes predictions and constantly compares these predictions with the actual incoming sensory information. The active inference theory of emotions posits that emotions arise when there is a mismatch between the bodily (interoceptive) sensations and what was predicted by the brain, i.e. when interoceptive prediction errors occur. This theory is extremely relevant for emotional disorders linked with infections (e.g. post-COVID), since infections can trigger various and intense interoceptive signals that can be difficult to predict by the brain. In this project, we will apply the active inference theory of emotions in an ecologically relevant model of infection, using an innovative experimental approach. We will go beyond the existing correlational designs by applying a causal intervention eliciting real sickness symptoms, and manipulating interoceptive prediction errors directly, in 240 participants. We hypothesize that emotional responses will arise during sickness when interoceptive prediction errors occur, i.e. when interoceptive sensations violate predictions. This project will therefore provide critical information to understand how individuals' predictions shape sickness behavior, and how emotions are generated in infection-related conditions, which could open new therapies for mood disorders associated with immune activation.
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 December 2021 - 30 November 2025
    Infectious diseases have always been and still are a major cause of human death, causing fatal epidemics worldwide. This project aims to resolve the paradox that while the most effective defense strategy would be to avoid every sick individual, humans do not
    instead, some sick individuals are approached for caregiving purposes. In fact, most care needs are met by family members, suggesting that kin selection strongly affects human responses to sickness cues. This interdisciplinary project will be the first to address whether early facial cues of sickness influence humans’ decisions to avoid or approach (i.e. care for) sick individuals and to what degree kinship moderates such decisions. In study 1, we will establish whether facial photographs of sick individuals induce spatial and social avoidance by using novel methods from experimental psychology and economics. In study 2, we will use cutting-edge digital morphing techniques to experimentally increase facial resemblance, and establish whether this cue of kinship suppresses avoidance of sick kin or even induces an approach behavior. In study 3, we will investigate whether the mere sight of early sickness cues activates the immune system, a mechanism that may enable approach, especially caregiving, by preparing the human body for an infectious attack. This project will answer fundamental questions of human behavioral immunity, a field that will benefit a world whose inhabitants are increasingly at risk from pandemics.
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2021 - 31 December 2021
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2021 - 31 December 2024
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2021 - 31 December 2023
  • Swedish Research Council for Health Working Life and Welfare
    1 January 2019 - 31 December 2021
  • Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation
    1 January 2019 - 31 December 2020
  • Changes in the central nervous system induced by allergic asthma that relate to depression and pain
    Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation
    1 January 2019 - 31 December 2020
  • Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation
    31 December 2018 - 30 December 2020
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2018 - 31 December 2020
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2018 - 31 December 2020
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2017 - 31 December 2019
  • Swedish Research Council for Health Working Life and Welfare
    1 January 2014 - 31 January 2016
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2014 - 31 December 2016
  • Konferens: 20th Annual Meeting of the PsychoNeuroImmunology Research Society, Stockholm June 5-8 2013
    Swedish Research Council for Health Working Life and Welfare
    1 January 2013 - 30 June 2013
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2013 - 31 December 2015
  • Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation
    1 January 2013 - 31 December 2015
  • Swedish Research Council for Health Working Life and Welfare
    1 January 2011 - 31 December 2013
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Employments

  • Professor, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, 2011-

Degrees and Education

  • Docent, Karolinska Institutet, 2007

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