Chronic pain may persist due to an individual’s inability to extinguish memories of pain, yet little is known as to what underlies this deficit. My long-term research goal is to understand possible brain and behavioral mechanisms underlying (a) cognitive deficits in chronic pain (b) the inability to extinguish pain memories (c) cognitive mechanisms of vulnerability or resilience to comorbidities of chronic pain such as addiction.

1. Phelps CE, Navratilova E, Porreca F. Cognition in the Chronic Pain Experience: Preclinical Insights. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 2021
2. Phelps CE, Navratilova E, Porreca F. Chronic pain produces reversible memory deficits that depend on task difficulty in rats. Journal of Pain 2021
3. Cowen SL, Phelps CE, Navratilova E, McKinzie DL, Okun A, Husain O, Gleason SD, Witkin JM, Porreca F. Chronic pain impairs cognitive flexibility and engages novel learning strategies in rats. Pain (2018) PMCID: PMC6008204