Dr. Tianwen Huang received his Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from Nanjing University in 2005 and completed his Ph.D. in Developmental Biology at the Shanghai Institutes for Life Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2012. He finished his postdoctoral training in the Department of Neurobiology/Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical School in 2019, then joined the Brain Cognition and Brain Disease Institute, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences as a Principal Investigator.

His research focuses on how peripheral sensory inputs (e.g. painful stimulation, acupuncture) modulate body homeostasis, particularly on exploring the ascending and descending circuit mechanisms underlying pain transmission and analgesia. He identified the key spinal neural substrate which is specifically essential for driving persistent noxious stimuli elicit recuperative behaviors and pain perception, but dispensable for driving nocifensive reflexes. His works have been published in Nature, Nature Neuroscience, Neuron and other international journals. The current interest of his lab is elucidating the neuro-immune interactions underlying acupuncture intervention for symptoms’ relief (e.g. chronic pain, cardiovascular dysfunction, and inflammatory bowel disease), as well as establishing novel animal models for pain research.

Neural Mechanisms of Pain and Brain-Body Interactions

1.Li, T.#, Zhou, W.#, Ke, J.#, Chen, M., Wang, Z., Hayashi, L., Su, X., Jia, W., Huang, W., Wang, C.S., Bengyella, K., Yang, Y., Hernandez, R., Zhang, Y., Song, X., Xu, T., Huang, T.*, and Liu, Y.* (2025). A pontine center in descending pain control. Neuron 113, 1789–1804.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2025.02.028
2.Wang, Z.#, Wang, L.#, Chen, F.#, Tao, K.#, Huang, T.*, Wang, L.*, and Lu, Z.* (2025). Depression Enhances Visceral Pain and Alters Behavioral Patterns in Chronic Pancreatitis Mice: An Objective Evaluation. Eur. J. Neurosci. 62, e70308.https://doi.org/10.1111/ejn.70308
3.Zhang, Q..#, Ke, J., Cui, G., Qian, S., Qian, W., Moon, S.W., Sun, Y., Huang, T.* , and Qin, Z.*  (2025). The neural ensembles activated by propofol and isoflurane anesthesia across the whole mouse brain. Neurosci. Lett. 846, 138080.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neulet.2024.138080
4.Ke, J.#, Lu, W.C.#, Jing, H.Y.#, Qian, S., Moon, S.W., Cui, G.F., Qian, W.X., Che, X.J., Zhang, Q., Lai, S.S., Zhang, L., Zhu, Y.J.*, Xie, J.D.*, and Huang, T.W.* (2024). Functional dissection of parabrachial substrates in processing nociceptive information. Zool. Res. 45, 633–647.https://doi.org/10.24272/j.issn.2095-8137.2023.412
5.Zhang, Y.#, Ke, J.#, Zhou, Y., Liu, X., Huang, T.*, and Wang, F.* (2022). Sex-specific characteristics of cells expressing the cannabinoid 1 receptor in the dorsal horn of the lumbar spinal cord. J. Comp. Neurol. 530, 2451–2473.https://doi.org/10.1002/cne.25342
6.Huang, T.#, Lin, S.H.#, Malewicz, N.M., Zhang, Y., Zhang, Y., Goulding, M., LaMotte, R.H., and Ma, Q. *(2019). Identifying the pathways required for coping behaviours associated with sustained pain. Nature 565, 86–90.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0793-8
7.Cheng, L.#, Duan, B.#, Huang, T.#, Zhang, Y., Chen, Y., Britz, O., Garcia-Campmany, L., Ren, X., Vong, L., Lowell, B.B., Goulding, M., Wang, Y.*, and Ma, Q.* (2017). Identification of spinal circuits involved in touch-evoked dynamic mechanical pain. Nat. Neurosci. 20, 804–814.https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.4549

His projects have received multiple research fundings from NSFC, the National Key R&D Program of China, and the local government of Guangdong province and Shenzhen.