Biography
Dr Rebeccah Slater is a Professor of Paediatric Neuroscience and Senior Wellcome Fellow in the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Oxford. She is also a Professorial Fellow at St. John’s College.
Rebeccah studied Physics (BSc) at Imperial College and Neuroscience (MSc) at UCL, and in 2007 was awarded her PhD at UCL under the supervision of Prof Maria Fitzgerald (FRS). Since 2013 she has led the Paediatric Neuroimaging Research Group, which focuses on understanding the mechanisms that underlie the development of pain perception in the human infant. She uses a range of non-invasive brain imaging tools, including EEG and fMRI, to explore the development of pain perception in the human nervous system.
She has published many articles about infant pain and is regularly involved in science communication and the public engagement of science. Rebeccah holds an honorary research position in the Neonatal Care Services at the John Radcliffe Children’s Hospital and is a PI at the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging (WIN). In 2017 was elected as a ‘Young Scientist’ by the World Economic Forum.
Find out more about the Poppi Trial - a Randomised Controlled Trial investigating the analgesic efficacy of morphine in premature infants.
Rebeccah Slater
PhD MSc BSc ARSM
Professor of Paediatric Neuroscience
- Senior Wellcome Trust Research Fellow
Understanding the mechanisms that drive the development of pain perception in the human infant
My Research
Pain in infancy has negative long-term consequences and its prevention is a clinical priority, but adequate treatment requires mechanistic understanding of the structural and functional development of human nociceptive circuitry.
My research group aims to understand the mechanisms that drive and modulate pain perception in early human development. Recent scientific advances provide insights into how noxious information is transmitted to the infant brain, providing a platform to ask how intrinsic brain network connectivity and the environment affect noxious-evoked brain activity, behaviour and ultimately pain perception in the developing infant nervous system.
We are investigating whether inherent differences in how the brain behaves at rest influence variability in noxious-evoked activity, and will determine how this relationship is altered by environmental factors and pathology. We want to understand how the development of structural and functional network connectivity alters noxious-evoked brain activity, and influences the dynamic relationship between brain activity and behaviour.
The overarching goal is that this developmental understanding will translate into the improved treatment of infant pain in premature and term-born infants.
Key publications
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Journal article
Hartley C. et al, (2017), Sci Transl Med, 9
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Journal article
Hartley C. et al, (2016), Curr Biol, 26, 1998 - 2002
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Journal article
Goksan S. et al, (2015), Elife, 4
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Journal article
Slater R. et al, (2010), Lancet, 376, 1225 - 1232
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Journal article
Hartley C. et al, (2018), Lancet, 392, 2595 - 2605
Recent publications
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Journal article
Freire MBO. et al, (2024), BMC Pediatr, 24
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Journal article
Baxter L. et al, (2024), Wellcome Open Research, 8, 402 - 402
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Journal article
Murphy CA. et al, (2024), Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed
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Journal article
Ullsten A. et al, (2024), Children (Basel), 11