School of Medicine
Showing 1-5 of 5 Results
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Amin Sadeghi
Postdoctoral Scholar, Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsApplications of artificial intelligence in medicine
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Pilleriin Sikka
Postdoctoral Scholar, Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsWhat makes certain experiences transformative, and how can we harness them to support resilience and mental health? I explore this question by studying emotions across various states of consciousness—waking, dreaming, anesthesia, psychedelics, and meditation. With a background in psychology, neuroscience, and anesthesiology, I bring together methods that are rarely combined: daily diaries and surveys, language and narrative analysis, neurophysiological recordings, lab experiments, and clinical trials. My work has three main aims: (1) to understand how affective experiences unfold across states; (2) to test whether these experiences can be deliberately shaped to support mental health; and (3) to identify the mechanisms that make them transformative. This interdisciplinary approach has led to the first controlled studies of anesthesia-induced dreams for trauma, new insights into peace of mind and emotion regulation, and cross-state comparisons showing how affective experiences in altered states can foster resilience. My long-term goal is to develop a new frontier in affective science: the study of how transformative experiences across different states of mind can improve well-being.
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Ayesha Sujan
Postdoctoral Scholar, Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine
BioAyesha Sujan, PhD, is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. Her research bridges epidemiology and clinical psychology and aims to improve the health and well-being of mothers and children, with a growing focus on the treatment of pediatric chronic pain. Motivated by the need to generate rigorous evidence to guide clinical decision-making, she focuses on areas where treatments are commonly used despite limited scientific support. She has published extensively on central nervous system medication and substance use in pregnancy. More recently, she has expanded her research program to address critical gaps in pediatric pain management treatment, including improving our understanding of central neuromodulator medication treatment for youth with abdominal pain-associated disorders of gut-brain interaction.
