Davis' main interest is the central mechanisms underlying acute and chronic pain and temperature perception, the influence of attention, and mechanisms of plasticity under normal conditions and in patients with neurologic or psychiatric disorders. A variety of experimental techniques are used, including functional brain imaging (fMRI, PET, MEG), psychophysical and cognitive assessment, and electrophysiological recordings in the thalamus and cortex.[7] Davis' laboratory has developed innovative brain-imaging approaches, culminating in the first functional MRI images of brain networks underlying the human pain experience and the first images of the impact of deep brain stimulation for Parkinsonian tremor.[citation needed]