Heartbeat tuning increased during both appetitive and aversive emotion states, a process not simply explained by increases in heart rate. Manipulation of sympathetic cardiac arousal using beta-adrenergic blockade disrupted neuronal encoding of emotion states in the pInsCtx and blunted behavioral and bodily emotion expression

Exciting new work by @merylneuro.bsky.social et al unpacking how sensory info from the heart impacts the processing of emotions in the brain, focused on one of the most mysterious and fascinating brain regions, Insula.

#GoTeamInsula

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Interested in the role of fat in chronic pain? Join us for this Symposium at the 2026 USASP Annual Conference, titled:

"When Fat Hurts: Lipedema as a Model for Understanding Chronic Pain Biology"

Wednesday, March 25, 2026
11:45 AM - 1:15 PM
Loews Philadelphia Hotel, Philadelphia, PA

Longitudinal human epidermal and dermal transcriptomic and spatial gene profiling at the incisional edge during long surgical procedures Dr. Sapio and colleagues discuss the arc of this research project from conception to publication.

Excited to share that our paper is finally published, with special thanks to Evelyn Li for her beautiful fluorescence microscopy and for bringing this over the goal line.

I wrote a brief synopsis and “Behind the Paper” blog post. More to come next year.

tinyurl.com/CommsSapio

The synaptic ectokinase VLK triggers the EphB2–NMDAR interaction to drive injury-induced pain Phosphorylation of hundreds of protein extracellular domains is mediated by two kinase families but the functional role of these kinases is underexplored. We find that the presynaptic release of the t...

Big new paper from us published yesterday: The synaptic ectokinase VLK triggers the EphB2–NMDAR interaction to drive injury-induced pain
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Led by @hajisciencebaji.bsky.social in my lab and a wonderful collaboration with Matthew Dalva's lab at Tulane

Analgesia after dorsal root ganglionic injection under CT-guidance in a patient with intractable phantom limb pain Dear Editor,

Love it! Is there some human study evaluating the positioning of a lidocain patch on pain relief? I did not see any.
The DRG is a wonderful target! Evidence also demonstrated I this case report: academic.oup.com/painmedicine...

Efficient removal of naturally-occurring lipofuscin autofluorescence in human nervous tissue using high-intensity white light. Background autofluorescence is enhanced in human tissue relative to small animals and presents a barrier to fully realizing the potential of novel multiplex methods in human studies. In particular, li...

This started as a small project in the lab to get our staining to be cleaner and evolved thanks to a lot of hard work by our very talented fellow Diana King who is now at UPenn doing her PhD. We’ve been sharing the device and all I can say is it works REALLY WELL.
www.jpain.org/article/S152...

BOOM! Super cool stuff

The first time I visited the US was actually a conference in New Orleans. I immediately fell in love with Cajun cuisine, and preparing Gumbo has been a source of comfort and joy since many years now. Luckily, my family loves it as much as me. Picture of Saturday's dish for your attention.

An update on non-pharmacological interventions for pain relief pdf.sciencedirectassets.com/776849/1-s2....

Macrophages protect against sensory axon loss in peripheral neuropathy - Nature A study in a mouse model of obesity and prediabetes demonstrates that recruitment of macrophages to nerves has a protective role in diet-induced peripheral neuropathy.

#PainResearch
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Chronic Pain Afflicts Billions of People. It’s Time for a Revolution. As many as two billion people suffer from it — including me. Can science finally bring us relief?

Really nice article in NY Times Magazine on the staggering impact of chronic pain, the challenges of treating it, and the journey toward discovering better, non-opioid pain therapies. 🧠💊
#ChronicPain #PainManagement
@karapedsgastrodoc.bsky.social
@nytimes.com

www.nytimes.com/2025/01/12/m...

Excited about the NIH Clinical Center podcast "Discovering hope in science" that featured our work. Listen in!
www.cc.nih.gov/podcast

Looks lovely. Where is that?

2024 FDA approvals The FDA approved 50 new therapeutics in 2024, with green lights for a novel schizophrenia drug, a first NASH medicine and much more.

A pretty good year for drug approvals in 2024 www.nature.com/articles/d41... but neurology lags behind recent trends for the year. Top of the list on what to look forward to in 2025 is Suzetrigine (VX-548) for acute (post surgical) pain in Jan!

Suzetrigine could be a really good addition to the non-opioid post-surgical cocktail.

hubs.la/Q02_YmnR0 It is finally out! Yes!!! Huge Thanks to
@robgereau for the support and guidance. Congratulations to all the co-authors. @jgenphysiol.bsky.social

Happy Thanksgiving! Homemade food with friends. American staples, German Rotkraut, Chilean wine. It can hardly get better.

And thank you, I am interested in your perspective.

They are my favorite too!

Hi Rachel, please add me!

The μ-opioid receptor differentiates two distinct human nociceptive populations relevant to clinical pain The shortfall in new analgesic agents is a major impediment to reducing reliance on opioid medications for control of severe pain. In both animals and…

Happy about all connections on this new platform, and using the opportunity to announce our paper from last month. We found molecular evidence for a substantial, clinically relevant differentiation of human C-nociceptors.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

True. Just added to the influx.

Brain Aging Among Individuals with Classical Trigeminal Neuralgia Trigeminal neuralgia (TN) is a complex orofacial neuropathic pain condition with limited understanding of underlying mechanisms and therapeutic options. Emerging evidence suggests the involvement of t...

Yet another really cool #pain paper today, from Yenisel Cruz-Almeida and John Neubert - www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Brain Aging Among Individuals with Classical Trigeminal Neuralgia

Postdoctoral Researcher Positions: Affective Neuroscience and Pain Lab Dr. Lauren Atlas’s laboratory is recruiting up to two postdoctoral researchers with expertise in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and affective science to join the Section on Affective Neu...

Hello new followers! We have positions available in my lab for one postdoc and 2-3 postbacs to start over the next year and lead studies on pain & emotion using high field MRI. Join us! www.nccih.nih.gov/about/jobs/p...

Hi Tayler, please add me! Thanks.