Jeff C. Liu

Director of the Human Brain Function Lab
Research Associate Professor of Neurosurgery
University of Virginia School of Medicine

Research Interests:
Brain mechanisms of pain perception in humans • Human brain mapping • Individual differences in pain • Neuromodulation for chronic pain

Dr. Liu investigates the brain mechanisms of pain perception in humans, focusing on how specific brain regions engage, disengage, and interact during painful experiences. His work combines neurophysiological techniques, including intracranial recordings, single-neuron activity, and scalp EEG, to examine pain processing across spatial and temporal dimensions.

In parallel with his basic research, Dr. Liu develops neuromodulation approaches for chronic pain. His lab leads NIH-funded first-in-human clinical trials of deep brain stimulation (DBS) and MRI-guided focused ultrasound (HIFU mesencephalotomy), targeting the anterior insular cortex and spinothalamic tract to advance novel therapies for medically intractable pain. The lab also investigates noninvasive methods, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), to study cortical contributions to pain. By bridging fundamental neuroscience with clinical translation, the lab aims to identify objective biomarkers of pain sensitivity and treatment response to guide the development of personalized, mechanism-driven interventions.

Dr. Liu’s scientific endeavor began with graduate research on seizure prediction and seizure control under the mentorship of Panos M. Pardalos (Operations Research), J. C. Sackellares (Neurology), and Basim M. Uthman (Neurology). In this work, he applied operations research methods, including optimization and nonlinear dynamic modeling alongside early machine learning techniques and chaos theory to analyze brain signals and forecast epileptic events. This interdisciplinary foundation reflects his longstanding interest in complex brain systems and the integration of computational approaches with clinical neuroscience.

During his postdoctoral training and early faculty career, Dr. Liu participated in numerous of neurosurgical procedures for movement disorders and epilepsy under the mentorship of Dr. Fred Lenz, a leading authority on thalamic mapping and human pain systems. In this role, he contributed to thalamic targeting, intraoperative brain mapping, and the physiological characterization of pain-related brain structures using painful laser stimulation in humans. He also gained extensive experience using laser stimulation to investigate the cortical representation of pain. In parallel, Dr. Liu developed substantial expertise in quantitative sensory testing (QST) and noninvasive brain stimulation through training with the late Dr. Joel Greenspan, a pioneering figure in pain research and experimental neuromodulation.

Dr. Liu completed a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Neurological Surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and subsequently served as Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Virginia.

  • Human Brain Function Lab
    Department of Neurological Surgery
    University of Virginia

    Collins Wing room 2417A
    101 Hospital Dr.
    Charlottesville, VA 22903

  • 434-243-2775

  • humanbrainlab@virginia.edu

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Publications

Journal

Liu C, Quigg M, Finan PH, Moosa S, Elias WJ. Stable insular spectral patterns underlie dynamic pain encoding in chronic neuropathic pain. Brain Communications 2026:fcag299

Elias WJ, Liu C, Nwafor D, Finan PH, Quigg M, Moosa S. Stereotactic focused ultrasound mesencephalotomy for the treatment of head and neck cancer pain. Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery 2026;104(1):8-18.

Wang D, Han A, Hwang G, Jacobson A, Realyvasquez P, Zhang X, Ye S, Finan P, Quigg M, Shayan M, Liu C. Contactless Laser Elicits Robust Temporal Summation Compared with Mechanical and Contact Heat Protocols. The Journal of Pain 2026:106274.

Wang D, Zhang X, Ye S, Carter W, Finan P, Quigg M, Moosa S, Elias WJ, Liu C. Reliable Biomarkers of Descending Pain Inhibition: A Laser‐Evoked Potential and Behavioural Study. European Journal of Pain 2026;30(1):e70181.

Wang D, Ye S, Zhang X, Carter W, Finan P, Quigg M, Moosa S, Elias WJ, Liu C. Temporal summation of pain varies across body regions: A cutaneous laser stimulation study in healthy controls. The Journal of Pain 2025;34:105453.

Wang D, Zhang X, Ye S, Realyvasquez P, Finan P, Quigg M, Moosa S, Elias WJ, Liu C. Pain Catastrophising Amplifies Parietal Responses to Painful Laser Stimulation in Healthy Controls. European Journal of Pain 2025;29(9):e70117.

Ye S, Quigg M, Wang D, Zhang X, Carter W, Finan P, Moosa S, Elias W, Liu C. Mapping the Insular Cortex for Cardiac Responses in Humans (P2-7.001), Proceedings of the Neurology, Vol. 104: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Hagerstown, MD, 2025. p. 3989.

Ishaque M, Moosa S, Urban L, Kundu B, Qureshi Z, Spears T, Fletcher PT, Donahue J, Patel SH, Goldstein RB, Liu CC, Elias WJ. Bilateral focused ultrasound medial thalamotomies for trigeminal neuropathic pain: a randomized controlled study. Journal of Neurosurgery 2023;140(6):1799-1809.

Wang D, Carter W, Chen SE, Moosa S, Ishaque M, Finan P, Quigg M, Elias WJ, Liu C. Contactless Cutaneous Laser Stimulation Evokes Greater Temporal Summation Of Pain In Healthy Female Subjects. The Journal of Pain 2023;24(4):104.

Wang D, Moosa S, Ishaque M, Finan P, Quigg M, Elias WJ, Liu C. Painful Cutaneous Laser Stimulation for Temporal Summation of Pain Assessment. The Journal of Pain 2023;24(12):2283-2293.

Wang Y, Yan G, Tanabe S, Liu C, Moosa S, Quigg MS, Zhang T. High-Dimensional Directional Brain Network Analysis for Focal Epileptic Seizures. arXiv preprint arXiv:220807991 2022.

Liu C, Moosa S, Quigg M, Elias WJ. Anterior insula stimulation increases pain threshold in humans: a pilot study. Journal of Neurosurgery 2021;135(5):1487-1492.

Liu C, Chien J, Chang Y, Kim J, Kim, Anderson W, Lenz F. Functional role of induced gamma oscillatory responses in processing noxious and innocuous sensory events in humans. Neuroscience 2015;310:387-400.

Liu C, Chien J, Kim J, Chuang Y, Cheng D, Anderson W, Lenz F. Cross-frequency coupling in deep brain structures upon processing the painful sensory inputs. Neuroscience 2015;303:412-421.

Zhao L, Verhagen-Metman L, Kim J, Liu C, Lenz F. EMG activity and neuronal activity in the internal globus pallidus (GPi) and their interaction are different between hemiballismus and apomorphine induced dyskinesias of Parkinson’s disease (AID). Brain research 2015;1603:50-64.

Chien J-H, Liu C, Kim JH, Markman TM, Lenz FA. Painful cutaneous laser stimuli induce event-related oscillatory EEG activities that are different from those induced by nonpainful electrical stimuli. Journal of neurophysiology 2014;112(4):824-833.

Markman T, Liu C, Zhang J, Kobayashi K, Kim J, Lenz F. Thalamic Burst Firing in Response to Experimental Pain Stimuli and in Patients with Chronic Neuropathic Pain may be a Carrier for Pain-Related Signals. Chronic Pain and Brain Abnormalities, 2014. pp. 41-60.

Kobayashi K, Liu C, Jensen A, Vitek J, Mari Z, Lenz F. Thalamic post-inhibitory bursting occurs in patients with organic dystonia more often than controls. Brain research 2013;1541:81-91.

Liu C, Ohara S, Franaszczuk P, Lenz F. Attention to painful cutaneous laser stimuli evokes directed functional connectivity between activity recorded directly from human pain-related cortical structures. Pain 2011;152(3):664-675.

Liu C, Ohara S, Franaszczuk PJ, Crone NE, Lenz FA. Attention to painful cutaneous laser stimuli evokes directed functional interactions between human sensory and modulatory pain-related cortical areas. Pain 2011;152(12):2781-2791.

Liu C, Crone N, Franaszczuk P, Cheng D, Schretlen D, Lenz F. Fear conditioning is associated with dynamic directed functional interactions between and within the human amygdala, hippocampus, and frontal lobe. Neuroscience 2011;189:359-369.

Liu C, Franaszczuk P, Crone N, Jouny C, Lenz F. Studies of properties of “Pain Networks” as predictors of targets of stimulation for treatment of pain. Frontiers in integrative neuroscience 2011;5.

Liu C, Shi C-Q, Franaszczuk P, Crone N, Schretlen D, Ohara S, Lenz F. Painful laser stimuli induce directed functional interactions within and between the human amygdala and hippocampus. Neuroscience 2011;178:208-217.

Liu C, Veldhuijzen D, Ohara S, Winberry J, Greenspan J, Lenz F. Spatial attention to thermal pain stimuli in subjects with visual spatial hemi-neglect: Extinction, mislocalization and misidentification of stimulus modality. Pain 2011;152(3):498-506.

Anderson W, Winberry J, Liu C, Shi C, FA L. Applying Microelectrode Recordings in Neurosurgery. Contemporary Neurosurgery 2010;32(3):1-7.

Liu C, Ohara S, Franaszczuk P, Zagzoog N, Gallagher M, Lenz F. Painful stimuli evoke potentials recorded from the medial temporal lobe in humans. Neuroscience 2010;165(4):1402-1411.

Zhang J, Xanthopoulos P, Liu C, Bearden S, Uthman BM, Pardalos PM. Real‐time differentiation of nonconvulsive status epilepticus from other encephalopathies using quantitative EEG analysis: A pilot study. Epilepsia 2010;51(2):243-250.

Kobayashi K, Winberry J, Liu C, Treede R-D, Lenz FA. A painful cutaneous laser stimulus evokes responses from single neurons in the human thalamic principal somatic sensory nucleus ventral caudal (Vc). Journal of neurophysiology 2009;101(5):2210-2217.

Liu C, Xanthopoulos P, Chaovalitwongse WA, Pardalos PM, Uthman BM. Antiepileptic drug intervention decouples electroencephalogram (EEG) signals: A case study in Unverricht-Lundborg Disease, Proceedings of the 2008 30th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society: IEEE, 2008. pp. 2108-2111.

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Jeff Elias