Associate Professor of Anaesthesia Harvard Medical School

Investigator Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Mass General Research Institute

Investigator Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine, Mass General Research Institute

Associate Professor of Radiology Harvard Medical School

arterial spin labeling; autonomic nervous system; blood oxygen level dependent fmri; chronic back pain; fibromyalgia; fmri; galvanic skin response; hot temperature; hyperalgesia; mr-pet; neuroinflammation; pain; pain perception; pain threshold; pet imaging; pet-mri; positron emission tomography The Loggia lab's main research questions focus on the brain mechanisms of pain in humans.

We are particularly interested in the evaluation of neuroimaging metrics as potential biomarkers of clinical pain, and in the identification of brain alterations occurring in patients suffering from chronic pain conditions. Some of the lab's most recent work focuses of the exploration of the role of non-neural cells in the brain (glial cells) and their interplay with neural cells as a potential pathophysiological mechanism in patients with chronic pain.

While neuroinflammation has been the subject of intense investigation in animal models, as of today it has been heavily understudied in humans.

In the quest to achieve a deeper understanding of the brain mechanisms of human pain, we use a variety of psychophysical and brain imaging techniques, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), -including Blood Oxygen Level Dependent (BOLD) fMRI and Arterial Spin Labeling (ASL)-, as well as integrated Positron Emission Tomography / Magnetic Resonance (PET/MR) imaging.