Laboratory of Yun-Yun Kathy Chen, MD

Overview

Over 80% of patients who undergo surgery report moderate, severe, or extreme levels of pain. Certain psychological pain profiles affect pain severity and the overall experience with pain. Regional anesthesia, a numbing injection in the form of an epidural or peripheral nerve block, has become an integral part of multimodal pain management for many surgeries.

The Chen Laboratory investigates how different psychosocial and physical pain profiles affect regional anesthesia delivery and pain outcomes in surgical populations and healthy volunteers, and interventions to improve pain and surgical outcomes.

Research Projects

Acute Pain Phenotyping

This study aims to improve our understanding of how patients with different psychosocial phenotypes experience pain after surgery, in the presence and absence of regional anesthesia.

Predicting Severe Postoperative Pain and High Opioid Consumption

This study aims to identifying new perioperative pain predictor variables using an un-biased risk prediction model via machine learning.

Research Team

Dr. Y. Kathy Chen is a regional and acute pain anesthesiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Mass General Brigham, and Assistant Professor of Anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School. She is a graduate of the University of Vermont, College of Medicine, and completed her residency and fellowship in anesthesiology and regional anesthesia at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Her clinical research focuses on personalizing and optimizing the regional anesthesia for patients undergoing surgery.

Publications

View publications

Selected Publications

1. Chen YK, Wilson JM, Gokul SR, Collins PW, Kiik M, Rosado E, Vlassakov KV, Schreiber KL. When Clinical Intuition Fails: Exploration of Clinicians' Underrecognition of Preoperative Pain Catastrophizing Despite Direct Observation. Pain Med. 2025 Nov 19:pnaf158. doi: 10.1093/pm/pnaf158
2. Chen YK, Wilson JM, Gokul SR, Collins PW, Kiik M, Vlassakov K, Schreiber KL. Education or sedation? A randomized clinical trial of impact on procedural pain and satisfaction during regional block placement, and the moderating effect of pain catastrophizing. Reg Anesth Pain Med. 2025 Jun 5:rapm-2025-106644. doi: 10.1136/rapm-2025-106644
3. Chen YK, Wilson JM, Flowers KM, Colebaugh CA, Franqueiro AR, Lirk P, Vlassakov K, Schreiber KL. A Mixed-Methods study of the impact of sex and situational pain catastrophizing on pain sensitivity. Pain Med. 2024 Aug 9:pnae072. doi: 10.1093/pm/pnae072
4. Chen YK, Lirk P, Flowers KM, Colebaugh CA, Wilson JM, Zeballos J, Von Keudell A, Barrett KE, Vlassakov K, Schreiber KL. Impact of varying degrees of peripheral nerve blockade on experimental pressure and ischemic pain: adductor canal and sciatic nerve blocks in a human model of compartment syndrome pain. Reg Anesth Pain Med. 2022 Jul 20:rapm-2022-103671. doi: 10.1136/rapm-2022-103671
5. Chen YK, Boden KA, Schreiber KL. The role of regional anaesthesia and multimodal analgesia in the prevention of chronic postoperative pain: a narrative review. Anaesthesia. 2021 Jan;76 Suppl 1(Suppl 1):8-17. doi: 10.1111/anae.15256