My PhD is conducted in the framework of a large-scale Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI PAIN-CARE; https://www.imi-paincare.eu) project, subtopic BioPain. The aim of this subtopic is to identify and validate a number of functional biomarkers based on non-invasive measures of neural activity (peripheral measures of nerve excitability, spinal and brainstem reflexes, measures of brain activity using electroencephalography [EEG] and functional magnetic resonance imaging [MRI] that can be used in humans to assess the effects of a given drug on the nociceptive system. If successful, these biomarkers would be used in future studies for the early stages of the pharmacological development of novel treatments for pain, and back-translated to animal models.