In our series of 'Meet the AMS scientist', we shine the light on outstanding AMS researchers and dive into their background, what drives them, what their work brings them and what they bring to their work. These interviews are also shared on the AMS LinkedIn account, feel free to share within your network!
The human body is remarkably good at adapting. When something changes, it sometimes responds in ways that are not immediately visible or even expected. For Fangxin Xiao, understanding these adaptations may be an important piece of the puzzle when it comes to one of the world's most common physical complaints: low back pain.
Fangxin's research focuses on how motor control changes in response to different problems affecting the lower back. While changes in movement and muscle activity are frequently seen in people with low back pain, identifying exactly what causes these changes is difficult. Pain, damage to the intervertebral discs, and reduced spinal stability can exist at the same time, making it challenging to separate one mechanism from another.
To investigate these mechanisms separately, Fangxin uses animal models. Her experiments allowed her to look at the effects of muscle pain and intervertebral disc damage individually before combining them. What she found showed just how well the body can respond and adjust to minimize loss of function.
However, there is no single pattern. Multiple underlying mechanisms can act simultaneously and compensate for one another. This complexity also raises questions about how we assess problems in the lower back. For Fangxin, the ultimate goal is not simply to identify whether something is damaged, but to understand how the body responds to that damage and why that response differs between individuals.
Interestingly, adaptation has also played a role in Fangxin's own research journey. Her background is in sports rehabilitation, a study programme in China combining elements of sports science and physiotherapy. Initially, she imagined herself becoming a physiotherapist or working with athletes. But during her studies, research increasingly caught her attention. Rather than applying existing knowledge, she found herself drawn to the possibility of asking new questions and trying to solve problems that did not have an answer yet.
Low back pain became her focus for a practical reason: it affects many people, making it an important problem to investigate. She initially conducted human experiments in China, but after her first experiment, the COVID-19 pandemic made continuing this work impossible. When she later came to the Netherlands, the available collaboration focused on animal research. What began as a necessary change in direction also created an opportunity to study the mechanisms behind low back pain in much greater detail.
Moving to the Netherlands also brought changes outside the laboratory. After five and a half years here, Fangxin has discovered a different balance between work and personal life. At work, being surrounded by researchers from different disciplines has exposed her to unfamiliar ideas. Rather than seeing this as a disadvantage, she values the opportunity to learn outside her own expertise and to know which experts she can approach when she needs a different perspective.
Looking ahead, Fangxin hopes to bring her research back to where it started: people. Having spent years investigating the mechanisms behind low back pain, she wants to shift from
predominantly theory-based research towards human studies and, eventually, more applied research. Personalized treatment particularly interests her. If different underlying problems can cause the body to respond in different ways, understanding those mechanisms may eventually help determine which approach is most appropriate for which person.
There is still a considerable distance between understanding these mechanisms and developing treatments based on them, something Fangxin readily acknowledges. It also happens to be what keeps her interested in research: there is always another question to answer, and always something new to learn.
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Written by Elianne Prange (Communication Officer AMS)