The Alan Edwards Fellowship in Clinical Pain Research is a training opportunity for health care professionals already possessing an MD or PhD who are interested in pursuing original clinical research in the field of pain medicine with the team at the AEPMU.
This article explores the recent history of basic and clinical research into the neuroscience of acute and chronic pain. Human volunteers and functional MRI are particularly emphasized.
New research, published this month by the American Pain Society (APS), adds to burgeoning scientific evidence showing that interdisciplinary pain rehabilitation programs are an effective alternative to opioids for chronic pain management.
A recent study in rats found that morphine treatment after laparotomy prolonged pain and hypersensitivity after the surgery, with longer opioid treatment correlated with longer pain duration. This prolongation of chronic pain could be due to inflammation in the central nervous system caused by the opioid treatment.
Research institutions in the U.S. received more than $2.3 billion for basic science research in 2017 from foundations, philanthropists, corporations, and charities, according to the Private Funding of Basic Science Survey conducted by the Science Philanthropy Alliance. The top ten institutions received 65% of this amount.
Read the Director’s Message from Dr. Walter Koroshetz, Director of NINDS, and the JAMA Viewpoint to get a better understanding of the HEAL initiative.
The Foundation is interested in fresh approaches to solving common, everyday problems or emerging issues within our defined focus area. Projects should focus on issues faced by care providers that, when implemented, will improve the health, nutrition and/or developmental outcomes for infants and young children. The board is particularly looking for practical solutions that can be easily and rapidly implemented on a broad scale with a predictable time frame to clinical application.
As part of the agency’s ongoing commitment to address the epidemic of opioid misuse and abuse, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration today launched an innovation challenge to spur the development of medical devices, including digital health technologies and diagnostic tests that could provide novel solutions to detecting, treating and preventing addiction, addressing diversion and treating pain.
Treatments that target only specific cell types may potentially relieve chronic pain from neuroinflammation while avoiding the side effects of systemic drugs.
Using genetically encoded biosensors in mice, the authors demonstrate that opioid hormones activate receptors at the cell surface and cell endosomes, while opioid therapeutic drugs activate these sites as well as receptors in the Golgi Apparatus in neurons. This difference in signaling location could be the reason why opioid therapeutic drugs produce severe negative side effects, while endogenous opioid hormones do not.
In this RELIEF podcast, neuroscientist and science journalist Stephani Sutherland met with Robert Coghill, APS Board Member and recipient of Frederick W.L. Kerr Basic Science Research Award, at the 2018 Scientific Summit to discuss his work and that of others aiming to decipher how the brain contributes to chronic pain.
The American Pain Society (APS) today endorsed aggressive action by the National Institutes of Health to accelerate scientific solutions to help resolve the nation’s opioid crisis by doubling funding for research on opioid misuse and pain management.
In this RELIEF podcast, neuroscientist and science journalist Stephani Sutherland met with Thorn at the 2018 Scientific Summit to discuss her recent clinical trial as well as other areas of pain psychology.
There will soon be an NIH study section dedicated to the review of basic science grants on Pain. At the March 26 Advisory Council meeting, the Center for Scientific Review formally chartered the Somatosenosry and Pain Systems (SPS) Study Section. We are very appreciative to the Center for Scientific Review for hearing the voices of pain scientists, who have long hoped for a dedicated Study Section to help improve the quality of peer review of Pain grants submitted to the NIH. CSR is now working on implementation of the SPS study section with a target of having it in place for the January 2019 Council round (grant reviews occurring in fall, 2018).
The 2018 National Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit, National Institutes of Health Director Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, announced the launch of the HEAL (Helping to End Addiction Long-term) Initiative, an aggressive, trans-agency effort to speed scientific solutions to stem the national opioid public health crisis.
Researchers have encapsulated natural opioid peptides in a nanopolymer matrix for nasal spray delivery to the brain. The drug blocked pain with no tolerance, suggesting a new and important potential way to fight pain with reduced side effects.
News from the American Pain Society Scientific Summit
Although impressive scientific evidence shows that pain self-management programs based on cognitive-behavioral therapies (CBT) are effective, they would have greater utility and impact if simplified appropriately for persons with below average literacy skills and impaired cognitive function, according to a leading pain psychologist speaking at the American Pain Society Scientific Summit here.
News from the American Pain Society Scientific Summit
Greater understanding of complex, underlying pain mechanisms, which are different in most pain patients, holds promise to improve the quality and precision of clinical pain assessments and help foster successful treatment outcomes.
News from the American Pain Society Scientific Summit
Reliance on behavioral indicators, such as crying, to assess pain in infants underestimates how much pain babies actually feel when they undergo stressful medical procedures.
News from the American Pain Society Scientific Summit
Chronic pain after surgery is a major health problem but little is known about individual pain experiences and how and why pain usually resolves.
