Research interests

Emotions are not abstract states, they are built by circuits that integrate external and internal signals, and learning. I’m interested in the neural mechanisms of negative valence: how the nervous system generates aversive experience and how those states persist, generalize, or resolve. Among negative emotions, pain is a uniquely powerful entry point because it sits at the interface between sensation and affect: it begins as a peripheral warning signal, but in chronic states it can become a brain-wide condition that reshapes motivation, mood, and behavior.

My research focuses on understanding how pain is constructed across levels of the nervous system, from molecularly defined sensory neurons to spinal cord computation and distributed brain ensembles that encode pain, relief, and negative affect. A central goal is to move beyond “one target, one drug” thinking by identifying which neuron types at multiple nodes can be modulated together to produce robust analgesia while avoiding the neural substrates of addiction and other opioid adverse effects. This systems-level view also naturally connects pain to its common comorbidities, including depression and vulnerability to substance use disorder, which arise from overlapping and interacting circuit mechanisms.

To address these questions, I combine quantitative behavioral pharmacology with cell-type–resolved tools, genetic and viral strategies, chemogenetic/optogenetic neuromodulation, single-cell transcriptomics, circuit tracing, and whole-brain imaging. Ultimately, I aim to translate circuit insight into safer pharmacological and non-pharmacological strategies that improve outcomes for patients living with chronic pain and related affective disorders.

Previous research projects:

• Understanding the role of FLT3 in the sensorial and emotional dimension of chronic pain/depression

• Peripheral FLT3 and opioid-induced tolerance and hyperalgesia

• Elucidating the transcriptional and morphological responses of microglia during chronic pain and opioid exposure

• Developing a peripherally-restricted chemogenetic system

Active research projects (2025): 

• Building a functional atlas of MOR-expressing spinal cord neuron types

• Disentangling the specific contribution of molecularly-distinct DRG neuron types to pain representation in the brain (K99/R00)