Professor Vasco Galhardo is involved in Pain Research; his training was in classical neuroanatomy performing detailed studies on the neuronal populations of the spinal cord dorsal horn, and from there he pushed his research to include a systems neuroscience focus on pain networks. Over the last 8 years, he made important contributions to the understanding of the neural mechanisms behind pain-induced cognitive deficits, focusing on the study of malplasticity in the functional connectivity of prefrontal cortex, amygdala and hippocampus of adult rats and mice, and on how this faulty reorganization affects behavioural performance in tasks dependent on learning, memory, and emotional decision-making. Since receiving his PhD, he has been P.I. in 7 research projects and team coordinator in another 4 collaborative projects; all these projects were obtained in competitive open calls and were funded by public and private national and European entities, totaling an amount over 1.3 million euros (987.000 euros of direct independent administration). In addition, he is a tenured professor of Morphophysiology in the Medical School of the University of Porto. In the Medical School, he sits at the Executive Council of the PhD Program in Neuroscience, he is a member of the scientific advisory board for undergraduate research meetings, and he is deeply involved in the local programs for integration of young medical students in basic research labs.