Markus Rütgen

Markus Rütgen is a Researcher in the Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology within the Faculty of Psychology. His research focuses on empathy, pain mechanisms, and social decision-making, with contributions to understanding shared pain representations, placebo effects, and brain networks involved in affective experiences.

Projects:

• Active project: The role of empathy in social decision-making (2021–2025)
• Completed project: Unravelling the role of the opioid system in pain empathy (2019–2024)

Research Interests: Rütgen explores how empathy and pain processing influence prosocial behavior and decision-making, leveraging neuroimaging techniques like fMRI and dynamic causal modeling. His work bridges clinical and social neuroscience, investigating the neural underpinnings of shared pain and emotional responses such as disgust.

Awards:

• Doc.Award 2016 (2017)
• EACLIPT Travel Award (2019)
• Giselher Guttmann-Preis 2019 (2019)

Activities: Rütgen actively participates in academic dissemination, including talks and poster presentations on topics like placebo analgesia’s impact on prosocial behavior and localized pain empathy. He has contributed to 48+ peer-reviewed activities since 2013.