Kristin L. Schreiber, MD, PhD is a translational pain researcher with a background in Neuroscience. Her research focuses on the development of chronic pain after surgical injury and inflammation, with a goal to translate knowledge of the important mechanistic pathways to prevent the development of chronic pain in humans in the perioperative setting. She studies the mechanisms by which individual differences in psychosocial processing and nociceptive sensitivity lead to enhanced pain propensity and longevity in some people, but not others. With accurate measurement and understanding of these differences, prospective identification of individuals at highest risk of pain persistence may allow the processes underlying this propensity to be averted through preventive perioperative treatment. In collaboration with several investigators in many departments across the Harvard system, she also investigates mechanisms of pain processing, and how these differ between individuals with chronic pain using fMRI, sleep analysis, digital pills and quantitative sensory testing in humans, as well as how these may be modulated by non-opioid analgesic techniques including distraction, mindfulness, music and yoga-based exercise.
(Biography as of February 2018)