Etienne joined the Apkarian lab as a post-doctoral fellow in October 2013. He completed his PhD under the supervision of Pierre Rainville at the University of Montreal where he studied the impact of stress on acute and chronic pain. These studies showed that hippocampal volume may predispose individuals to develop a maladaptive stress response when facing persistent pain and the neural mechanism mediating stress induced analgesia.
In the Apkarian lab, Etienne is looking at the structural and functional brain properties that make an individual vulnerable or resilient to the development of chronic pain. These analyses are conducted in a cohort of individuals with subacute back pain that have been followed over a year. Etienne is also involved in a new study examining the brain properties predisposing individuals to respond to placebo treatments in clinical trials.
Contact Etienne at : etienne.vachon-presseau@northwestern.edu
For the most recent list of Etienne’s publications see his pubmed authorship listing