Richard D. Lane, M.D., Ph.D. is Professor of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Arizona. A clinical psychiatrist and psychodynamic psychotherapist with a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology (systems neuroscience and emotion research), he was one of the first researchers to perform functional brain imaging studies of emotion in the 1990s and continues studies on emotion, emotional awareness and neurovisceral integration to the present using fMRI. His research on emotion, the brain and heart disease has been funded by a variety of sources including K and several RO1 grants from NIH. He is the author of more than 200 papers and book chapters and is senior editor of two books. As an educator he served as director of the psychotherapy curriculum for psychiatric residents at the University of Arizona for over two decades and has received seven awards for teaching and mentoring. He was President of the American Psychosomatic Society in 2005-6, elected member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, elected Honorary Fellow of the American College of Psychoanalysts and the Fulbright-Freud Visiting Lecturer in Psychoanalysis hosted by Fulbright Austria and the Sigmund Freud Museum in Vienna, Austria in 2023. In 2024 he received the Distinguished Scientist Award from the American Psychosomatic Society.
Guiding themes in his research and scholarship have been the importance of integrating systems neuroscience with psychological conceptualizations and the need to bridge basic science and clinical application. These themes have driven his work on emotional awareness and alexithymia, the role of emotion in mind-body interactions including susceptibility to sudden cardiac death and the mechanisms by which memory and emotion interact to make enduring change in psychotherapy possible. The last theme was featured in the book Neuroscience of Enduring Change: Implications for Psychotherapy published by Oxford University Press in 2020 and was the basis for the Fulbright fellowship in 2023.
Professional Affiliations
American Psychiatric Association, American Psychosomatic Society, Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry, Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, Cognitive Neuroscience Society, International Neuropsychoanalysis Society, Southwest Psychoanalytic Society, Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration
Cognitive-developmental model of individual differences in emotional experience and expression; neural basis of emotion and emotional awareness using PET and fMRI and its interaction with peripheral physiology, particularly vagal tone; and mechanisms by which emotion triggers sudden cardiac death.
2021
Lane RD, and Smith, R. 2021. Levels of Emotional Awareness: Theory and Measurement of a Socio‐Emotional Skill. Journal of Intelligence 9:42. https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence9030042
2020
Lane RD. The construction of emotional experience: State-related emotional awareness and its application to psychotherapy research and practice. Invited paper for a special issue of Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 2020; 20(3), 479-487.
Lane RD, Solms M, Weihs KL, Hishaw A, Smith R. Affective agnosia: A core affective processing deficit in the alexithymia spectrum. Biopsychosocial Medicine; 14(1), 1-14, 2020.
Lane RD. Promoting the integration of psychodynamic and emotion-focused psychotherapies through advances in affective science and neuroscience. Clinical Social Work Journal 48(3), 279-286, 2020.
Smith R, Steklis D, Steklis N, Weihs KL, Lane RD. Evolution and development of the uniquely human capacity for emotional awareness: synthesis of comparative anatomical, cognitive, neurocomputational and evolutionary psychological perspectives. Biological Psychology, 107925, 2020.
Lane RD, Greenberg L Subic-Wrana C, Yovel I. The role of enhanced emotional awareness in promoting change across psychotherapy modalities. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration 2020 (Sept 17).
Lane RD. Alexithymia 3.0: Reimagining alexithymia from a medical perspective. Invited commentary for Biopsychosocial Medicine 14(1), 1-8, 2020.
Smith R, Lane RD. Thinking through others’ emotions: Incorporating the role of emotional state inference in thinking through other minds. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 2020;43:E114.
2019
Smith R, Weihs KL, Alkozei A, Killgore WD, Lane RD. An embodied neuro-computational framework for organically integrating biopsychosocial processes: An application to the role of social support in health and disease. Psychosomatic Medicine 2019; 81(2), 125-145.
Smith R, Quinlan DM, Schwartz GE, Lane RD. Developmental contributions to emotional awareness. Journal of Personality Assessment 2019; 101(2):150-158.
Beutel M, Greenberg L, Lane RD, Wiltink J, Subic-Wrana C. Treating anxiety disorders by Emotion-focused Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (EFPP)- a transdiagnostic and integrative approach. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy 2019; 26(1): 1-13.
Versluis A, Brosschot J, Lane RD, Thayer JF, Hagemann D, Verkuil B. Ecological momentary assessment of emotional awareness. Current Psychology 2018; 1:1-9.
Smith R, Kaszniak AW, Katsanis J, Lane RD*, Nielsen L* (*joint senior authors). The importance of identifying underlying process abnormalities in alexithymia: Implications of the three-process model and a single case study illustration. Consciousness and Cognition 68, 33-46, 2019.
van der Ploeg MM, Jos F. Brosschot JF, Quirin M, Lane RD, Verkuil B. Inducing unconscious stress: Subliminal anger and relax primes show similar cardiovascular activity patterns. Journal of Psychophysiology 2019 (in press).
Ruan Y, Reis H, Zareba W, Lane RD. Does suppressing negative emotion impair subsequent emotions? Two experience sampling studies. Motivation and Emotion 2019:1-9.
Smith R, Gudleski G, Lane RD, Lackner JM. Higher emotional awareness is associated with reduced pain in irritable bowel syndrome patients. Psychological Reports 2019 Aug 13:0033294119868778.
Smith R, Lane RD, Parr T, Friston KJ. Neurocomputational mechanisms underlying emotional awareness: insights afforded by a deep temporal active inference model and their potential clinical relevance. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 2019; 107: 473-491.
2018
Smith R, Killgore WD, Lane RD. The structure of emotional experience and its relation to trait emotional awareness: a theoretical review. Emotion 2018; 18(5):670.
Smith R, Killgore WD, Lane RD. Nested positive feedback loops in major depression: An integration and extension of previous models. Brain, Behavior and Immunity 2018’ 67: 374-397.
Wright R, Riedel R, Sechrest L, Lane R, Smith R. Sex differences in emotion recognition ability: The mediating role of trait emotional awareness. Motivation and Emotion 2018; 42(1):149-160.
Smith R, Lane RD, Bajaj S, Alkozei A, Smith C, Sanova A, Killgore WDS. Greater cortical thickness within the limbic visceromotor network predicts higher levels of trait emotional awareness. Consciousness and Cognition 2018; 57:54-61.
Lane R, Reis H, Hsu P, Kern K, Couderc JP, Moss AJ, Zareba W. Abnormal repolarization duration during everyday emotional arousal in Long QT Syndrome and Coronary Artery Disease. American Journal of Medicine 2018; 131(5), 565-572.
Khalsa SS, Adolphs R, Cameron OG, Critchley HD, Davenport PW, Feinstein JS, Feusner JD, Garfinkel SN, Lane RD, Mehling WE, Meuret AE, Nemeroff CB, Oppenheimer S, Petzschner FH, Pollatos O, Rhudy JL, Schramm LP, Simmons WK, Stein MB, Stephan KE, Van Den Bergh O, Van Diest I, von Leupoldt A, Paulus MP, and the Interoception Summit 2016 participants. Interoception and Mental Health: A Roadmap. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging 2018; 3(6):501-513.
Smith R, Lane RD, Alkozei A, Bao J, Smith C, Sanova A, Nettles M, Killgore WDS. The role of medial prefrontal cortex in the working memory maintenance of one’s own emotional responses. Scientific Reports 2018; 8(1):3460.
Lane RD. From reconstruction to construction: The power of corrective emotional experiences in memory reconsolidation and enduring change. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 2018; 66(3):507-516.
Herrmann AS, Beutel M, Berzymisch K, Lane RD, Molitor-Pastore J, Wiltink J, Zwerenz R, Banerjee M, Subic-Wrana C. The impact of attachment distress on affect-centered mentalization: an experimental study in psychosomatic patients and healthy adults. Plos One 2018; 13(4): e0195430.
Kromenacker B, Allen JJB, Marcus F, Sanova A, Lane RD. Vagal mediation of low frequency heart rate variability during slow yogic breathing. Psychosomatic Medicine 2018; 80(6):581-587.
Smith R, Sanova A, Alkozei A, Lane RD, Killgore WDS. Higher levels of trait emotional awareness are associated with more efficient global information integration throughout the brain: A graph-theoretic analysis of resting state functional connectivity. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 2018; 13(7):665-675.
Smith R, Lane RD, Alkozei A, Bao J, Smith C, Sanova A, Nettles M, & Killgore WDS. Common and unique neural systems underlying the working memory maintenance of emotional vs. bodily reactions to affective stimuli: the moderating role of trait emotional awareness. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2018; 12:370.
Lane RD, Sommer Anderson F, Smith R. Biased competition favoring physical over emotional pain: A possible explanation for the link between early adversity and chronic pain. Psychosomatic Medicine 2018; 80(9), 880-890.
Smith R, Killgore WD, Lane RD. A neuro-cognitive process model of emotional intelligence. Biological Psychology 2018; 139, 131-151.