Lab Director
Marina López-Solà, PhD
Principal Investigator
Marina López-Solà's work centers on understanding the brain mechanisms, psychological and sensory processes that underlie pain and affective suffering in chronic pain and depressed individuals.
She obtained a PhD in Neuroscience and Medicine from the University of Barcelona. Following her doctorate, she pursued advanced training in neuroimaging and computational methods at the University of Colorado Boulder. She established an independent laboratory at Cincinnati Children's Hospital in 2017, where she built collaborations with chronic pain researchers and secured her inaugural R01 grant. Subsequently, she relocated to Barcelona, where she received the prestigious Ramón y Cajal award and obtained competitive RETOS project funding.
She holds positions as an Editor and Board Member for various organizations and aims to develop a strong translational pain and affective neuroscience research line in Europe and the US.
Postdoctoral Researchers
Laura Martín Herrero
Postdoctoral Researcher
Laura holds a degree in Biology and a Master's in Molecular Genetics and Biotechnology. She completed her PhD at the Pain and Emotion Neurosciences Laboratory, studying sensory processing in juvenile fibromyalgia using fMRI, computational analysis, and transcriptomic-informed approaches. She conducted a research stay at Yale University and internships at Institut Curie and the Schwann-Schleiden Research Centre. Her research focuses on neurocognitive and molecular mechanisms of chronic pain and affective disorders, brain connectivity, and brain-body interactions.
Marta Matamala-Gomez
Postdoctoral Researcher
Marta Matamala-Gomez holds a PhD in Biomedicine from the University of Barcelona. She obtained three competitive postdoctoral fellowships under the programs: Maria Zambrano, Beatriu de Pinòs, and Marie Curie Individual Fellowship. Currently, she is a postdoctoral researcher specialized in sensory learning and multisensory integration processes in neurological and chronic pain conditions.
Throughout her career she has used cutting-edge technologies such as Virtual Reality and Movement Sonification techniques, together with neurophysiological techniques such as EEG and TMS.
Saül Pascual Díaz
Postdoctoral Researcher
Saül brings extensive expertise in neuroimaging data analysis. During his PhD at the University of Barcelona, he developed a diffusion MRI method to minimize surgical damage. He has taught neuroscience and neuroimaging at UB, uses FSL, SPM, ANTs and MRtrix, and has collaborated with MELD and ENIGMA at IDIBAPS. He is part of SPRINT, focused on adolescent chronic pain neuroimaging signatures, and coordinates BCNspiracy, Sopa de Partículas, and social media for Pint of Science Spain.
Maria Suñol Rodrigo
Postdoctoral Researcher
Maria Suñol is a postdoctoral researcher investigating how neurobiological and psychosocial factors interact to shape resilience, compassion, and prosocial behavior. She has carried out research stays at Melbourne University (Australia) and Harvard University (USA). Her trajectory has been recognized through prestigious postdoctoral fellowships: the Juan de la Cierva and Margarita Salas at the start of her postdoctoral stage, and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action and the La Caixa Junior Leader in 2026.
Graduate Students
Àngels Calvet i Mirabent
PhD Student
Àngels is a biomedical engineer graduated from the UPF and holds a master's in data science from the UOC. She has worked in MRI data management, quality control, and image post-processing at IDIBAPS–Hospital Clínic Barcelona. Her work includes supporting multicentre studies and collaborations such as ENIGMA, contributing to imaging workflows and large-scale datasets. She is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Barcelona, focusing on neuroimaging in chronic pain and affective disorders.
Lidia Izquierdo Peralvarez
PhD Student
Lidia is a psychologist graduate with a Master's Degree in Cognitive and Behavioural Neuroscience. Her research focuses on understanding the neural mechanisms linking pain perception and reward-related brain activity using various neuroimaging techniques. In addition to her work on resting-state functional connectivity, she is also involved in a project examining the effects of left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) stimulation on pain perception from a reward processing perspective using TMS and EEG recordings.
Miguel Montero Escobedo
PhD Student
Miguel holds a degree in Psychology and a master's in Neurosciences from the University of Barcelona. He received a competitive national studentship during his final undergraduate year to conduct research in the neuropsychology and neuroimaging of obesity.
His current doctoral thesis focuses on the brain correlates of illness-related self-concept in adult depression and chronic pain across the lifespan, and its association with core affective symptoms. His research interests also include cognitive dysfunction in nociplastic pain conditions and mental disorders.
Òscar Salvans Alejo
PhD Student
Òscar graduated in Psychology and obtained a Master's in Neuroscience from the University of Barcelona, where he is currently a predoctoral researcher at PENLab.
His PhD investigates the affective and sensorimotor mechanisms of nociplastic chronic pain. His work integrates fMRI and behavioral measures to characterize brain–behaviour relationships in chronic nociplastic pain populations using a precision neuroimaging approach. His research specifically focuses on motor control in juvenile fibromyalgia, combining fMRI with a handgrip strength task.
Research Staff
Arnau Güell Brugués
Laboratory Technician
Arnau holds a degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Barcelona. He works as a specialized Neuroimaging Technician for various labs at the Institute of Neurosciences – UBNeuro.
His work focuses on the standardization and optimization of MRI preprocessing and analysis pipelines, as well as the harmonization of large, multi-cohort datasets. He also works on the development and implementation of novel quality control and signal processing methods.
José Pariente Zorrilla
Laboratory Technician
José Carlos Pariente is a biomedical engineer with over ten years of experience in clinical neuroimaging research at Hospital Clínic Barcelona / IDIBAPS. His work focuses on MRI data management, quality control and post-processing, including structural MRI, diffusion MRI and fMRI. He has supported multicentre studies and international collaborations such as ENIGMA and MELD, contributing to imaging workflows, large-scale datasets and scientific publications in multidisciplinary clinical research settings.
Undergraduate & Master’s Students
Silvana Salinas Duran
Biomedical Engineering MSc Student
Silvana is a biomedical engineer with experience in neuroscience, specialized in the relationship between emotions and neural activity. Her work combines research, data analysis, and technology. She aims to contribute to neuroscience research with a focus on the mind-body connection and its impact on health and physical performance, particularly in high-performance contexts such as mountain sports.
Collaborators
Catherine Jackson
Clinical Research Coordinator (Cincinnati Children's)
Catherine holds a B.S. in Neuroscience from Ohio State University and an M.S. in Psychological Studies from the University of Glasgow. She serves as lead coordinator for the "Brain Mechanisms of Juvenile Fibromyalgia" study at the Cincinnati site.
Alumni
Former members of the PENLab family.
Lucia Blanc Velázquez
Lucia holds an Environmental Science degree and is currently pursuing a Master's in Data Science. She was responsible for patient recruitment coordination, laboratory space management, and data collection and supervision. She is proficient in programming with R.