Patrick Finan
University of Virginia
Professor of Anesthesiology
Patrick H. Finan, Ph.D. is the Harold Carron Professor of Anesthesiology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. The Finan Lab focuses broadly on explicating psychological and neurobiological mechanisms of chronic pain. Within that broad domain, Dr. Finan’s team specifically seeks to identify how emotions and pain interact, who evidences characteristics of emotion-related risk and resilience, and when changes in emotions facilitate or inhibit the experience of pain. They employ intensive longitudinal methods to assess behavioral and objective correlates of pain in real time (e.g., sleep; emotions; opioid use; cannabis use), and utilize laboratory-based experimental methods to understand factors influencing pain perception (e.g., sleep deprivation; quantitative sensory testing; fMRI; pharmacological challenge). Additionally, they develop and test novel therapeutic interventions that engage affect- and sleep-related mechanisms to ameliorate pain and mitigate problematic opioid use. Dr. Finan is currently leading clinical trials examining the effects of Savoring Meditation and psilocybin administration on pain and emotion-related outcomes among patients with chronic pain.
