Our Research Team
Principle Investigator
Etienne Vachon-Presseau
Dr. Vachon-Presseau completed his PhD under the supervision of Pierre Rainville (Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada) where he studied how stress hormones impact the brain of chronic pain patients. Etienne then conducted a post-doctoral fellowship under the supervision of Vania Apkarian (Northwestern University, Chicago, US) where he studied the brain properties predisposing the development of chronic pain and the brain and psychological determinants of placebo pills response in randomized controlled trial.
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Contact: etienne.vachon-presseau@mcgill.ca
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Lise Hobeika
Lise Hobeika is a postdoctoral researcher specialized in hearing and emotions, working between the Vachon-Presseau Lab at McGill and the Hearing Institute in Paris. Her research explores the mechanisms behind tinnitus—a chronic condition involving the perception of a phantom sound—using analytical approaches from chronic pain research. She employs a range of methods across multiple scales, including machine learning on large epidemiological datasets, cognitive testing, and neuroimaging.
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Contact: lise.hobeika@gmail.com
Doctoral Students
Matt Fillingim
Matt Fillingim’s primary research interests lie in clinical computational neuroscience with a focus on multi-modal neuroimaging and chronic pain. Matt is interested in leveraging globally spanning data to understand the experience of pain over the lifespan. His research also focuses on leverage large population datasets (UKBB) and machine learning to derive neuroimaging-based biomarkers of chronic pain. Matt’s long term goal is to facilitate the development of personalized medicine and improve brain health through the state-of-the-art neuroimaging modalities and individualized bioinformatic models.
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Contact: matthew.fillingim@mail.mcgill.ca
Gianluca Guglietti
Gianluca's current research explores how the brain integrates expectations, learning, and sensory input to shape the experience of pain. Gianluca started in the Vachon-Presseau lab in 2020 studying for a Master’s in Dental Sciences where he investigated the social determinants of chronic pain from a population neuroscience perspective with a specific focus on sex and gender. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience at the University of Toronto (2016-2020) where he studied pediatric pain, endocannabinoids, and neuroimaging.
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Contact: gianluca.guglietti@mail.mcgill.ca
Jax Norman
Jax is a Doctoral student interested in chronic pain, chronic illness, and racial and ethnic differences in their prevalence and effects. Currently she is working on computing an index of allostatic load in the UK Biobank cohort to examine the relationship between allostatic overload and chronic pain. In the future, she hopes to explore racial and ethnic differences in the interactions between chronic pain, chronic illness, and socioeconomic status and identify factors contributing to their development.
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Contact: jacqueline.norman@mail.mcgill.ca
Christophe Tanguay-Sabourin
Christophe Tanguay-Sabourin is a MD/PhD student co-supervised by Dr. Vachon-Presseau at the EVP Laboratory (primary location), Dr. Luda Diatchenko and Dr. Pierre Rainville at the University of Montreal where he is studying Medicine. He completed an undergraduate research thesis with Dr. Vachon-Presseau, on the role of stress and cortisol on chronic low back pain followed by a master’s thesis combining brain, genetic and epidemiological risk factors linked to chronic widespread pain. In his free time, he likes to get coffee and discuss research.
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Contact: christophe.tanguaysabourin@mcgill.ca
Lindsay Neuert
Lindsay is a Doctoral student researching how question wording and study design differences impact self-reported pain reports. Her work uses data from over 5 million individuals across the world to incorporate a globally diverse sample. She completed her undergraduate studies in the Neuroscience, Honours stream at the University of Guelph.
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Contact: lindsay.neuert@mail.mcgill.ca
Research Assistant
Azin Zare
Azin Zare is a Doctor of Dental Medicine (DMD) student at McGill University. She completed her master degree under the supervision of Dr. Vachon-Presseau at the Faculty of Dentistry. Before starting her studies at McGill, she initially received her DMD degree from Iran. Her research interest is related to studying the complexity of chronic pain manifestations, and the purpose of her thesis project in Dr. Vachon-Presseau’s lab was to evaluate the predictors of prescription opioid use and examine alterations in the brain of individuals suffering from chronic pain being prescribed opioids.
On the personal side, she loves to travel and learn new things along the way. When she is not working, she enjoys being outdoors and hanging out with friends. Her passion is to become a clinician-scientist and she is always looking forward to new opportunities.
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Contact: azin.zare@mcgill.ca
Alan Edwards Center for Research on Pain
Our lab is affiliated with the Alan Edwards Center for Research on Pain which comprises researchers from the Faculties of Medicine, Dentistry and Science. Its main goal is to bring together the McGill community of basic and clinical pain researchers to promote research that will result in cures for chronic pain.