Name: Vitaly Napadow
Credentials: PhD, LicAc
Workplace: Harvard University
Vitaly Napadow is Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, as well as Radiology, at Harvard Medical School. He is also the Director of the Scott Schoen and Nancy Adams Discovery Center for Recovery from Chronic Pain at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital and the Center for Integrative Pain Neuroimaging (CiPNI) at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital. He has been a pain neuroimaging researcher for more than 20 years. In fact, somatosensory, cognitive, and affective factors all influence the malleable experience of chronic pain, and Dr. Napadow’s Lab has applied human functional and structural neuroimaging to localize and suggest mechanisms by which different brain circuitries modulate pain perception. Dr. Napadow’s neuroimaging research also aims to better understand how non-pharmacological therapies, from acupuncture, spinal manipulation, and transcutaneous neuromodulation to cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness meditation training, ameliorate aversive perceptual states such as pain. Dr. Napadow has more than 200 publications in leading peer-reviewed scientific journals, is past-President of the Society for Acupuncture Research, and serves on the board of the US Association for the Study of Pain (USASP) and numerous conference, journal, and NIH review panels. He was recently named to the Academy Distinguished Investigator Council by the Academy for Radiology & Biomedical Imaging Research and received the Excellence in Integrative Medicine Research Award by the European Society for Integrative Medicine.
Dr. Napadow is excited to work with Drs. Cook and Reed, as well as other ForceNet researchers to expand our understanding of force-based mechanisms for manual therapies and neural mechanisms contributing to clinically-relevant outcomes. At ForceNET, he serves on the Membership working group.
