[Abstract]

Pain is one of the most fundamental yet elusive human experiences. Despite decades of neuroimaging research, we still lack models that capture its complexity and individuality. In this talk, I will discuss our efforts to model pain in the brain and the limitations of current approaches. I will then explore how understanding pain requires understanding the self—an embodied, self-referential system that regulates its own internal states. Drawing from affective neuroscience, cybernetics, and artificial intelligence, I will propose new directions for building neurocomputational models that bridge biological and artificial systems and that remain grounded in the principles of life and feeling.

 

[Biography]

Choong-Wan (Wani) is the director of the Computational Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Lab (Cocoan lab). His research focuses on understanding how the human brain represents, processes, and regulates pain and emotions using machine learning and computational modeling. He received his dual PhD in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience and the Institute of Cognitive Sciences from the University of Colorado Boulder, and MA in clinical psychology and BS in Biology from Seoul National University. He has received many awards, including the Scitech Korea Young Neuroscientist Award from the Korean Society for Brain and Neural Sciences (2023), the Top 100 R&D achievements from the Korean government (2022), Kim Chan Award from the Korean Pain Research Society (2022), Outstanding Achievement Award from the Korean Society for Human Brain Mapping (2021), Jaeil Kim Young Scholar Paper Award from the Korean Psychological Association (2019). Currently, he is an associate director of the IBS Center for Neuroscience Imaging Research, an associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU).