Welcome to the Pain and Neuroinflammation Imaging Lab
(PI: Marco Loggia, PhD)
Who are we?
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 on 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.
Latest News
- New paper “Neuroinflammation”: does it have a role in chronic pain? Evidence from human imaging is out now!We are pleased to announce the new publication titled “Neuroinflammation”: does it have a role in chronic pain? Evidence from human imaging” by Marco! Despite hundreds of studies demonstrating… Read more: New paper “Neuroinflammation”: does it have a role in chronic pain? Evidence from human imaging is out now!
- New paper in collaboration with Prof. Mainero titled “Phenotyping In Vivo Chronic Inflammation in Multiple Sclerosis by Combined 11C-PBR28 MR-PET and 7T Susceptibility-Weighted Imaging” is out now!We are pleased to announce a new publication in collaboration with Prof. Mainero titled “Phenotyping In Vivo Chronic Inflammation in Multiple Sclerosis by Combined 11C-PBR28 MR-PET and 7T Susceptibility-Weighted… Read more: New paper in collaboration with Prof. Mainero titled “Phenotyping In Vivo Chronic Inflammation in Multiple Sclerosis by Combined 11C-PBR28 MR-PET and 7T Susceptibility-Weighted Imaging” is out now!
- New paper in collaboration with Prof. Peter Grace from MD Anderson, showing that TSPO is upregulated in the rat brain after peripheral nerve injury is downregulated by the drug diroximel fumarate is out!We are pleased to announce a new publication in collaboration with Prof. Peter Grace from MD Anderson titled ‘18 kDa Translocator protein (TSPO) is upregulated in rat brain after… Read more: New paper in collaboration with Prof. Peter Grace from MD Anderson, showing that TSPO is upregulated in the rat brain after peripheral nerve injury is downregulated by the drug diroximel fumarate is out!
- New publication in collaboration with Prof. Toschi titled ‘Physically informed deep neural networks for metabolite-corrected plasma input function estimation in dynamic PET imaging’ is out!We are pleased to announce a new publication in collaboration with Prof. Toschi titled ‘Physically informed deep neural networks for metabolite-corrected plasma input function estimation in dynamic PET imaging’.… Read more: New publication in collaboration with Prof. Toschi titled ‘Physically informed deep neural networks for metabolite-corrected plasma input function estimation in dynamic PET imaging’ is out!
- New paper describing a blood-free modeling approach for TSPO PET signal quantification, in collaboration with Prof. Veronese’s group at University of Padova is out!We are pleased to announce the publication of a new research article titled ‘A blood-free modeling approach for the quantification of the blood-to-brain tracer exchange in TSPO PET imaging’.… Read more: New paper describing a blood-free modeling approach for TSPO PET signal quantification, in collaboration with Prof. Veronese’s group at University of Padova is out!
- New paper describing the ENIGMA-Chronic Pain Working Group is out!We are pleased to announce the publication of a new research article titled “ENIGMA-Chronic Pain: a worldwide initiative to identify brain correlates of chronic pain” in the journal Pain. This… Read more: New paper describing the ENIGMA-Chronic Pain Working Group is out!