Academic and Research Communication with Kong Yazhuo

On January 12, 2018, Dr. Kong Yazhuo from Institute of Psychology,Chinese Academy of Sciences visited the faculty of psychology of Southwest University,and made abrilliant reports titled‘Descending pain modulation system: from cortical to subcortical’.

Pain is a vital function of the nervous system in providing the body with a warning of potential or actual injury. Pain-associated brain regions are collectively known as the “pain network” including both cortical areas and subcortical areas (most importantly, brainstem and spinal cord). Descending systems originating in the brainstem exert top-down modulation of nociceptive input at the spinal level. However these are challenging regions for imaging. The main difficulties are the small anatomical size; magnetic susceptibility differences (i.e. bone/disc interfaces); physiological noise - primarily cardiac and respiratory related; motion and flow artifacts due to cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) pulsation. In Dr.Kong’s talk, he briefly discussed the concept of descending pain modulation mechanism and the current developments of brainstem and spinal MRI, including some experiments we have run, such as laterality, attention modulation and resting state networks in the spinal cord. Neuromyelitis Optica (NMO) is a very rare and devastating neurological condition, characterised by the sudden onset of severe demyelinating lesions and optic neuritis (ON). Neuropathic pain is well recognised in more than 80% of patients with transverse myelitis and there is no known therapy that produces satisfactory relief from NMO-associated pain. He aims to understand the disease pathology and pain of NMO patients using multi-modal imaging techniques, such as structural, DTI, MR spectroscopy, fMRI etc.

Dr. Kong Yazhuo joined Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences last year. He is the deputy director of the center for magnetic resonance research. He received a Ph.D. in Department of psychology from The University of Sheffield and engaged in magnetic resonance imaging research for many years at Functional MRI of the Brain , University of Oxford. Dr. Kong's research focuses on the nervous system of pain. He use fMRI and DTI, ASL, MRS to study the pain of brainstem spinal cord neural pathway and spinal cord disease. He have made some excellent research, which was published in PNAS, NeuroImage, Journal of Neuroscience, Pain , etc.