Apkar Apkarian | The Helix Center

Apkar Apkarian

Title: Professor of Physiology, Anesthesiology, and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation; Director, Center for Translational Pain Research

Institution: Northwestern

Discipline: Neuroscience & Cognition

Appearances: 1

Notable: Pioneer in fMRI-based pain research; first to identify grey matter changes related to chronic back pain (2004); first to describe resting state network changes in chronic pain patients (2008); proposed chronic pain as emotional learning theory

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Biography

Apkar Vania Apkarian is a neuroscientist and pioneer in the use of fMRI and magnetic resonance spectroscopy to study the neurochemistry of the brain, including the first demonstration of the brain's small-world network properties using fMRI. In 2008, he proposed the influential theory that chronic pain is a form of emotional learning, which transformed the study of reward learning within the pain research field. His research was pivotal in establishing neuroplasticity as a mechanism of chronic pain, first identifying grey matter changes related to chronic back pain in 2004.

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