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Institute Of NeuroScience

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Institute Of NeuroScience

InsuLab

ions | Bruxelles Woluwe, Louvain-la-Neuve

Research

To date, the exact mechanisms by which pain arises from human neural activity have not been fully understood. Because neural oscillations are considered to serve integrative functions by flexibly routing the information flow in the brain, they appear to be particularly suitable for integrating the sensory, cognitive, and affective components of pain. Therefore, we aim to characterize pain-related modulations of ongoing oscillations, and to investigate whether pain arises from the modulation of spontaneous and dynamically fluctuating brain activities. To achieve this goal, we employ a combination of electrophysiological (scalp and intracerebral EEG, fMRI) and neuromodulation techniques (tACS, TMS, intracerebral stimulation).

Giulia LIBERATI, Principal Investigator

Yaser FATHI ARATEH, Postdoctoral researcher

Iqra SHAHZAD, Postdoctoral researcher

Giulia FUNGHI, Postdoctoral researcher

Aïcha BOUTACHKOURT, PhD student

Onur ALTI, PhD student

Gloria RICCI, PhD student

Mattia RAVASIO, PhD student

International Collaborations:

  • Center for Neuroplasticity and Pain, Aalborg University, Denmark
  • Center for Mind/Brain Sciences – CIMeC, University of Trento, Italy
  • Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Rome, Italy
  • Paola Castellano, Bologna, Emilia Romagna, Italy
  • PAINMOD: Neuromodulation of pain-related ongoing oscillations
     
  • STIM-WAVES: Identifying biomarkers with invasive and non-invasive brain stimulation targeting ongoing neural oscillations
     
  • NEBAT: The Neural Basis of Thermoception
     
  • FRESCO4NoPain: Frontier RESearch COmpetences for Neuro-modulation and Oscillations in PAIN
  • Fathi, Y., Dissassuca, F., Ricci, G., Liberati, G., Individualised Alpha-tACS for Modulating Pain Perception and Neural Oscillations: A Sham-Controlled Study in Healthy Participants. Eur J Pain 2025; 29, no. 7: e70086.
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  • Leu, C., Glineur, E., Liberati G., Cue-based modulation of pain stimulus expectation: do ongoing oscillations reflect changes in pain perception? Royal Society Open Science 2024; 11(6):240626.
     
  • Leu C., Courtin A., Cussac C., Liberati G. The role of ongoing oscillation in pain perception: Absence of modulation by a concomitant arithmetic task. Cortex 2023; 168:114-129.
     
  • Liberati G., Mulders D., Algoet M., van den Broeke E. N., Ferrao Santos S., Ribeiro Vaz J. G., Raftopoulos C., Mouraux A. Insular responses to transient painful and non-painful thermal and mechanical spinothalamic stimuli recorded using intracerebral EEG. Sci Rep. 2020 Dec 18;10(1):22319.
     
  • Liberati G., Algoet M., Ferrao Santos S., Ribeiro-Vaz J. G., Raftopoulos C., Mouraux A. Tonic thermonociceptive stimulation selectively modulates ongoing neural oscillations in the human posterior insula: Evidence from intracerebral EEG. Neuroimage. 2019 Mar;188:70-83.

Publications