We are delighted that Balint Kincses has been awarded the IFORES Career Kickstart Grant by the Essen University Hospital for his outstanding research project, ‘Layers of pain: uncovering the mechanisms in the cortical integration of bottom-up and top-down processes in pain perception and its modulation using ultra-high-field fMRI’!

In his study, Balint Kincses investigates not only how the brain perceives pain, but also how it modulates it – a key aspect for the development of new therapies for chronic pain syndromes. A major focus lies on the roles of the cortical layers in pain processing.

The research will utilise the high spatial and temporal resolution of ultra-high-field fMRI (7 Tesla) at the Erwin L. Hahn Institute for MRI (ELH) to visualise the finest patterns of activity in the human brain.

Balint Kincses is a member of the research group led by ELH Principal Investigator Ulrike Bingel, whose scientific focus lies on the investigation of pain processes.

Congratulations, Balint!