Anushka Soni
MA BMBCh MRCP DPhil
Clinical Research Fellow
Mechanisms of pain in arthritis
Research
I am a Rheumatologist with a research interest in musculoskeletal pain mechanisms. During my DPhil, I studied the impact of abnormal central pain processing in patients with osteoarthritis of the knee. I showed a relationship between the presence of neuropathic pain and central sensitization pre-operatively, and that this modified the patient’s response to knee replacement surgery. Moving forwards, my work will use a combination of techniques, including neuroimaging and clinical pain quantification, to investigate pain related predictors of response to treatment in inflammatory arthritis.
Background
I completed my medical degree at Magdalen College, Oxford in 2003 having obtained a BA Hons (Cantab) in Natural Sciences in 2000. I then completed my general medical training at the Oxford Deanery and moved to the North London Deanery in 2007 to commence my specialist training in Rheumatology. I returned to the Oxford Deanery in 2008 and took up a Clinical lecturer post in 2009. During my specialist training I secured an NIHR Doctoral Research Fellowship in order to complete a DPhil (Oxon) entitled “Pain Characterisation in Osteoarthritis”. I have now completed my specialist training in Rheumatology and have been awarded a four-year Oxford-UCB Prize fellowship, which I started in September 2017, to advance and translate my work on pain mechanisms to inflammatory arthritis.
Recent publications
Brain signatures of nociplastic pain: Fibromyalgia Index and descending modulation at population level.
Journal article
Kelleher EM. et al, (2026), Brain, 149, 1365 - 1380
Serum neurofilament light chain in fibromyalgia: comparative evidence of neuronal injury across chronic pain conditions.
Journal article
Fundaun J. et al, (2026), Pain Rep, 11
What can UK Biobank’s 500 000 participants teach us about chronic pain?
Journal article
Kelleher EM. and Irani A., (2026), British Journal of Anaesthesia
Neuropathic-like pain characteristics predict worse pain outcomes in early rheumatoid arthritis: a prospective cohort study with embedded neuroimaging evaluation.
Conference paper
Kelleher EM. et al, (2026), Pain
Why sleep matters in chronic pain: evidence across the lifespan.
Journal article
Kelleher EM. et al, (2026), EBioMedicine, 125
