Personal Statement
I am a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology in the Institute of Population Health, part of the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at the University of Liverpool. My work is focussed on measuring interactions between different regions of the human central nervous system, with a particular focus on understanding how these processes change in people experiencing pain. I have recently co-developed an MSc in Neuroscience for which I am the Programme Director, and Education lead for the Liverpool Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Centre (LINC). From January 2025, I will take on the role of co-Lead for the Liverpool Magnetic Resonance Imaging Centre (LiMRIC), which houses a 3T Siemens Prisma MR scanner, equipped with multi-nuclear spectroscopy option.

I received my PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Liverpool in 1999, utilising magnetic resonance spectroscopy to study the affects of ageing on the human brain. Following my PhD, I worked at the Pain Research Institute (PRI), Clinical Sciences Centre, Liverpool. Subsequently, I was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Oxford, in the Department of Human Anatomy and Genetics (Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics) working in Professor Irene Tracey's PaIN Group. Following a move to the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neuroscience and the Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain (FMRIB), I was awarded an MRC career development fellowship, which allowed me to focus on developing techniques for measuring functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data in the human brainstem and spinal cord. In 2011, I moved to the University of Bristol to help set up the Clinical Research and Imaging Centre (CRiCBristol), moving to the University of East Anglia in 2021 to fulfil a similar role at the UEA Wellcome Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre (UWWBIC). In 2024 I was appointed to the role of Senior Lecturer at the University of Liverpool.

Research Overview
My research focusses on using neuroscience techniques to study changes in the human central nervous system (CNS) produced by pain. Pain is a uniquely human experience, which can be elicited by actual or potential damage to the body. By using a variety of different techniques e.g. magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), functional MRI, magnetic resonance spectroscopy we aim to track changes occurring as a result of acute and chronic pain.

The pain we feel following acute injury acts as a potent reminder to avoid repeating what we did that led to the original damage. As such, pain is a powerful learning signal. Certain brain areas are thought to track signals from the body that indicate where the injury occurred, whereas other regions use this information to learn from the experience, to try to minimise future hurt. However, in chronic pain conditions such as fibromyalgia, where widespread pain is commonly experienced, it is clear that pain is not serving a useful purpose. One possibility is that persistent changes in the CNS produce amplification of signals from the body, which may lead to pain. Our research aims to understand how the "rules" around how much pain we feel can be learned, and unlearned, and if it is possible to visualise where in the CNS these signals are amplified and interpreted - and possibly lead to chronic pain.