World's Best Scientists 2026 revealed!
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Best Female Scientists
2025

D-Index & Metrics

Best Female Scientists

D-Index
108
Citations
44901
World Ranking
973
National Ranking
93

Neuroscience

D-Index
109
Citations
46807
World Ranking
558
National Ranking
72

Medicine

D-Index
108
Citations
46650
World Ranking
5967
National Ranking
585

Research.com Recognitions

  • 2025 - Research.com Best Female Scientists Award
  • 2020 - Member of Academia Europaea
  • Fellow of The Academy of Medical Sciences, United Kingdom
  • Fellow of The Academy of Medical Sciences, United Kingdom
  • Fellow of The Academy of Medical Sciences, United Kingdom
  • Fellow of The Academy of Medical Sciences, United Kingdom
  • Fellow of The Academy of Medical Sciences, United Kingdom

Overview

Irene Tracey is affiliated with the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Their research spans multiple disciplines primarily within medicine and neuroscience, with a strong emphasis on pain mechanisms and treatments. This work incorporates studies on pain management, placebo effects, musculoskeletal pain, rehabilitation, and the intersection of mental health with emerging health challenges such as COVID-19.

Their publication record covers a variety of topics and is disseminated through several prominent venues. Frequent publication platforms include bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) with nine publications, British Journal of Anaesthesia with six, Trials with three, Lara D. Veeken with three, and The Lancet Psychiatry with two.

Key research areas include:

  • Pain Mechanisms and Treatments
  • Pain Management and Placebo Effect
  • Musculoskeletal Pain and Rehabilitation
  • Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments
  • Botulinum Toxin and Related Neurological Disorders
  • COVID-19 and Mental Health
  • SARS-CoV-2 Detection and Testing

Main fields of study within their scientific contributions are Medicine with 108 publications and Neuroscience with 34 publications. Subfields addressed in their work include Cognitive Neuroscience, Physiology, Neurology, Pharmacology, and Psychiatry and Mental health.

Notable recent papers authored or co-authored by Irene Tracey include:

  • Multidisciplinary research priorities for the COVID-19 pandemic: a call for action for mental health science (2020, The Lancet Psychiatry)
  • Discovery and validation of biomarkers to aid the development of safe and effective pain therapeutics: challenges and opportunities (2020, Nature Reviews Neurology)
  • Meta-analysis of neural systems underlying placebo analgesia from individual participant fMRI data (2021, Nature Communications)
  • Considerations and methods for placebo controls in surgical trials (ASPIRE guidelines) (2020, The Lancet)
  • Human surrogate models of central sensitization: A critical review and practical guide (2021, European Journal of Pain)

The scientist has collaborated extensively with several frequent co-authors including Vishvarani Wanigasekera, Anushka Soni, Rolf-Detlef Treede, Nanna Brix Finnerup, and André Mouraux, with counts of collaboration reaching up to eleven joint works.

Irene Tracey has been recognized by professional bodies through awards such as becoming a Member of Academia Europaea in 2020 and holding Fellowship status at The Academy of Medical Sciences, United Kingdom.

Best Publications

  • Multidisciplinary research priorities for the COVID-19 pandemic: a call for action for mental health science.

    Emily A. Holmes;Emily A. Holmes;Rory C O'Connor;V. Hugh Perry;Irene Tracey

  • The Cerebral Signature for Pain Perception and Its Modulation

    Irene Tracey;Patrick W. Mantyh

  • Dissociating pain from its anticipation in the human brain.

    A Ploghaus;I Tracey;J S Gati;S Clare

  • Imaging how attention modulates pain in humans using functional MRI.

    Susanna J. Bantick;Richard G. Wise;Alexander Ploghaus;Stuart Clare

  • A common neurobiology for pain and pleasure.

    Siri Leknes;Irene Tracey

  • Exacerbation of Pain by Anxiety Is Associated with Activity in a Hippocampal Network

    A Ploghaus;C Narain;C F Beckmann;S Clare

  • Neurocognitive aspects of pain perception.

    Katja Wiech;Markus Ploner;Markus Ploner;Irene Tracey

  • The Effect of Treatment Expectation on Drug Efficacy: Imaging the Analgesic Benefit of the Opioid Remifentanil

    Ulrike Bingel;Ulrike Bingel;Vishvarani Wanigasekera;Katja Wiech;Roisin Ni Mhuircheartaigh

  • Resting fluctuations in arterial carbon dioxide induce significant low frequency variations in BOLD signal.

    Richard G Wise;Kojiro Ide;Marc J Poulin;Irene Tracey;Irene Tracey

  • The influence of negative emotions on pain: Behavioral effects and neural mechanisms

    Katja Wiech;Irene Tracey

  • Imaging Attentional Modulation of Pain in the Periaqueductal Gray in Humans

    Irene Tracey;Alexander Ploghaus;Joseph S. Gati;Stuart Clare

  • Getting the pain you expect: mechanisms of placebo, nocebo and reappraisal effects in humans.

    Irene Tracey

  • From nociception to pain perception: imaging the spinal and supraspinal pathways.

    Jonathan Brooks;Irene Tracey

  • How neuroimaging studies have challenged us to rethink: is chronic pain a disease?

    I Tracey;M C Bushnell

  • Anterior Insula Integrates Information about Salience into Perceptual Decisions about Pain

    Katja Wiech;Chia Shu Lin;Kay H. Brodersen;Ulrike Bingel;Ulrike Bingel

  • Psychophysical and functional imaging evidence supporting the presence of central sensitization in a cohort of osteoarthritis patients.

    Stephen E. Gwilym;John R. Keltner;Catherine E. Warnaby;Andrew J. Carr

  • Arthroscopic subacromial decompression for subacromial shoulder pain (CSAW): a multicentre, pragmatic, parallel group, placebo-controlled, three-group, randomised surgical trial

    David J Beard;Jonathan L Rees;Jonathan A Cook;Ines Rombach

  • Functional organization of spatial and nonspatial working memory processing within the human lateral frontal cortex.

    Adrian M. Owen;Chantal E. Stern;Rodney B. Look;Irene Tracey

  • Somatotopic organisation of the human insula to painful heat studied with high resolution functional imaging.

    Jonathan C. W. Brooks;Jonathan C. W. Brooks;L. Zambreanu;L. Zambreanu;A. Godinez;A. D. (Bud) Craig

  • Discovery and validation of biomarkers to aid the development of safe and effective pain therapeutics: challenges and opportunities.

    Karen D. Davis;Karen D. Davis;Nima Aghaeepour;Andrew H. Ahn;Martin S. Angst

  • Supplementary Materials for The Effect of Treatment Expectation on Drug Efficacy: Imaging the Analgesic Benefit of the Opioid Remifentanil

    Ulrike Bingel;Vishvarani Wanigasekera;Katja Wiech;Roisin Ni Mhuircheartaigh

Frequent Co-Authors

Jonathan C W Brooks
Jonathan C W Brooks University of Bristol
Katja Wiech
Katja Wiech University of Oxford
Gian Domenico Iannetti
Gian Domenico Iannetti University College London
Petra Schweinhardt
Petra Schweinhardt University of Zurich
Stuart Clare
Stuart Clare University of Oxford
Paul M. Matthews
Paul M. Matthews Imperial College London
Saad Jbabdi
Saad Jbabdi University of Oxford
Heidi Johansen-Berg
Heidi Johansen-Berg University of Oxford
Markus Ploner
Markus Ploner Technical University of Munich
Ulrike Bingel
Ulrike Bingel University of Duisburg-Essen

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