Giancarlo Vanini

Assistant Professor, Anesthesiology, Medical School

Our research focuses on the interacting states of sleep, pain and general anesthesia from a systems neuroscience perspective.  Specifically, we use rodent models of inflammatory and post-surgical pain to better understand how disrupted sleep can worsen ongoing pain and lead to the development of chronic pain.  An additional line of investigation seeks to advance our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the loss of consciousness during states of sleep, sedation and general anesthesia.  Our laboratory uses transgenic mice models, behavioral assays, neurophysiological recordings, brain connectivity analysis, neurochemistry, calcium imaging, and chemogenetic and pharmacological tools to probe neural networks controlling sleep, wakefulness and nociception.