Mikkel Vestergaard
Pain processing in insular cortex
Investigating how the brain registers pain
鈥淧ain is a multifaceted sensation serving as an important warning system and is an inevitable part of what it is to be human. Yet we know little about how neuronal networks in our brain process pain. The aim of my research is to gain new insights into the activity of neuronal networks in the insular cortex, a specific region of the brain assumed to play a key role in the brain鈥檚 processing of pain,鈥 says Mikkel Vestergaard, a postdoctoral fellow in neuroscience at James Poulet Laboratory, part of the Max Delbr眉ck Center in Berlin.
Mikkel Vestergaard, 41, is one of five exceptionally talented early-career researchers to receive the 2024 Lundbeck Fellowship worth a total of DKK 10 million (EUR 1.3). The fellowship grant, which will be disbursed over the next five years, enables Vestergaard to set up his own research team at the Department of Neuroscience, University of Copenhagen (UCPH).
The pain-related topics Vestergaard and his team will be investigating at UCPH include: Which neuronal networks in the insular cortex are affected by pain and how is pain registered and processed in this region of the brain?
An understanding of this could hold therapeutic potential, he explains: 鈥淭his could benefit patients living with chronic pain who are currently difficult to treat because this type of pain is very complicated to relieve. The same goes for patients with phantom pain. Gaining greater insights into the role played by the insular cortex in these conditions may inspire the development of novel pain relief therapies.鈥
Until now, the location of the insular cortex in the human brain and in other mammals has made it very difficult to obtain detailed measurements of how this region processes pain. To overcome this challenge, Vestergaard and his colleagues have developed an investigative technique allowing them to make these measurements in studies on mice.
Together with his fellow researchers at UCPH, he will be using this technique to conduct a series of experiments in which mice are subjected to moderate heat or cold. Meanwhile, Vestergaard and his team will be combining various measurements with the aim of obtaining revealing images of general activity in the cortex 鈥 the brain region of which the insular cortex is a part, and also demonstrating activity at individual cellular level inside the insular cortex. And while the mice are subjected to the effects of heat and cold, the researchers will also be stimulating neuronal cell activity in the mouse brain, explains Vestergaard:
鈥淭his is possible because we鈥檙e working with genetically modified experimental animals (GMO mice). They are 鈥榚ngineered鈥 to allow us to use light to switch neuronal cell activity on and off in specific networks in their brain.鈥
This will also allow the researchers to learn more about the role of the insular cortex in processing pain in humans because the system is assumed to be largely identical in all mammals.
- Age: 41 years.
- Citizenship: Denmark.
- Education: Master's in physics, University of Copenhagen (KU). PhD in neuroscience, University of Copenhagen.
- Current appointment: Postdoc in neuroscience at the James Poulet Laboratory at the Max Delbruch Center, Berlin, Germany.
- Establishes own research group at: Department of Neuroscience, University of Copenhagen.
- Research project: 'Pain processing in insular cortex'.
About the 2024 LF Fellows:
