Dr. Haggai Sharon
I center on the question of how the brain constructs the subjective experience, especially in the context of chronic pain, and on therapeutic interventions which are able to rapidly modulate the aversive nature of mental and physical suffering. My lab mainly focuses on the following:
1. Basic brain mechanisms involved in processing pain and emotion, the interaction between tem, and their responses to non-invasive interventions.
2. The clinical effects of existing pharmacotherapies and invasive and noninvasive neuromodulation in patients with complex chronic pain syndromes and the interaction between pain reduction and quality of life measures, sleep, emotion regulation, and cognitive function.
3. Probing the clinical and brain effects of cannabinoids and ketamine on complex pain syndromes, especially neuropathic pain and fibromyalgia.
4. Studying brain mechanisms underlying the changes in subjective experience and body perception with the use of psychedelics in healthy subjects, and examining the therapeutic potential of using these substances in patients with chronic pain and neuropsychiatric disorders.
Brain Disorders Research
Clinical Neuroscience
Cognitive Neuroscience
- ISharon H, Pasternak Y, Ben Simon E, Gruberger M, Giladi N, Krimchanski BZ, Hassin D, Hendler T. Emotional processing of personally familiar faces in the vegetative state. PLoS One. 2013;8(9):e74711.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0074711 - Domany Y, Bleich-Cohen M, Tarrasch R, Meidan R, Litvak-Lazar O, Stoppleman N, Schreiber S, Bloch M, Hendler T, Sharon H. Repeated oral ketamine for out-patient treatment of resistant depression: randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, proof-of-concept study. Br J Psychiatry. 2019;214(1):20-6.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-of-psychiatry/article/repeated-oral-ketamine-for-outpatient-treatment-of-resistant-depression-randomised-doubleblind-placebocontrolled-proofofconcept-study/76898B0B3980372F9EE79043F55A08FD - Goldway N, Ablin J, Lubin O, Zamir Y, Keynan JN, Or-Borichev A, Cavazza M, Charles F, Intrator N, Brill S, Ben-Simon E, Sharon H*, Hendler T*. *Equal Contribution Volitional limbic neuromodulation exerts a beneficial clinical effect on Fibromyalgia. Neuroimage. 2019;186:758-70.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053811918320718?via%3Dihub - Weizman L, Dayan L, Brill S, Nahman-Averbuch H, Hendler T, Jacob G, Sharon H. Cannabis analgesia in chronic neuropathic pain is associated with altered brain connectivity. Neurology. 2018;91(14):e1285-94.
https://n.neurology.org/content/91/14/e1285.long - Sharon H, Maron-Katz A, Ben Simon E, Flusser Y, Hendler T, Tarrasch R, Brill S.Mindfulness Meditation Modulates Pain Through Endogenous Opioids.Am J Med. 2016;129(7):755-8.
https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(16)30302-3/fulltext
