18 April 2023

India Morrison, senior associate professor in cognitive neuroscience, has won the Onkel Adam Award for 2023 for her outstanding research at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at Linköping University (LiU). One of her research areas is how touch and pain affect our behaviour.

Headshot of a woman close to a window.India Morrison. Photo credit Emma Busk Winquist

In their motivation, the jury highlights India Morrison’s “innovative and outstanding research into how touch and pain control, or are controlled by, emotional and social factors”. She was among the first in the world to show that when we witness somebody else being subjected to pain and we experience “empathetic” pain, the same area in the brain is activated as when we experience similar pain ourselves.

“One of the things I find interesting is that the areas in the brain that react when we witness somebody else’s pain are also involved in preparing us to act and move. I’ve long been fascinated by the connection between emotions and movement. To me, research into pain and touch is a window to the secret processes in the brain,” says India Morrison, senior associate professor in the Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences at LiU.

In her research lab, the Embodied Brain Lab, she combines hormone measuring with cognitive tests and MRI scans of the brain.Lena Jonasson.Lena Jonasson. Photo credit Anna Nilsen

“It’s really wonderful that India Morrison is recognised for her outstanding research in this exciting multi-disciplinary field integrating psychology and biology,” says Lena Jonasson, dean at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at LiU, who led the nomination work of the award committee.

India Morrison will receive a sum of SEK 250,000 and will accept the award at the Linköping University Academic Celebrations on 27 May.

The Onkel Adam Award was founded in 2020 through a generous donation to the Jubilee Foundation at Linköping University from a descendent of Onkel Adam, Bengt Normann. The aim of the award is to promote medical research at LiU and to honour the memory of Onkel Adam, the pen-name of well-known 19th century physician, author, writer and politician Carl Anton Wetterbergh, who lived in Linköping.

Translation by Anneli Mosell

Further reading

Contact

Latest news from LiU

A man and a woman standing on a rock beside a pond.

How property owners can work to prevent flooding

The risk of heavy rainfall and severe flooding increases with climate change. But property owners  often underestimate their own responsibility. In a new scientific article, researchers from LiU show how the can go about the preventive work.

Portrait (Gustaf Hendeby).

Blurred borders between civilian and military

A tense political situation in the world, a war in Europe and an everyday life with increasing threats to our security – what do the researchers do? More than you might think and there will be even more. Defence research is more active than ever.

The award winner: “Genetics is a bit like the Wild West”

Colm Nestor has been awarded the 2025 Onkel Adam Prize for outstanding research at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. One of his research areas is gender differences in susceptibility to autoimmune diseases and infections.