Education

Save the Date: April 30–May 3, 2014
33rd Annual Scientific Meeting

Join APS in Tampa, FL, to discover current information about the diagnosis, treatment, management, and current research of acute pain, chronic cancer and noncancer pain, and recurrent pain.

The 2014 educational program will include

• more than 35 educational sessions, featuring interactive workshops and symposia
  
• a keynote address by David Newman, MD
  
• plenary lectures by Mark Zylka, PhD; Camilla Svensson, PhD MPharmSci; and John Loeser, MD
  
• a Global Year Against Pain Lecture on orofacial pain by Brian Schmidt, DDS MD PhD
  
• unopposed author-attended poster sessions that feature cutting-edge research.

Information regarding the 33rd Annual Scientific Meeting can be found at www.apsscientificmeeting.org as it becomes available. We hope to see you in Tampa!

Young Investigator Travel Support

APS is planning to offer Young Investigator travel support for the 2014 APS Annual Scientific Meeting. A limited number of funding awards may be available to individuals who will be presenting poster abstracts at the meeting, April 30–May 3, 2014, in Tampa, FL. Applicants may be from any research training background (basic or clinical science, psychology, medicine, or biostatistics) and may be at any level in training, including students, residents, predoctoral trainees, postdoctoral fellows, or those who have completed their postdoctoral training within the last 3 years. All applicants must be APS members and must have an abstract accepted for presentation. Applications from nonmembers will not be considered.

To apply for funding, complete the Young Investigator Travel Award online application, which will be available on the APS website beginning January 6, 2014. Note that an applicant’s abstract must be accepted for presentation before he or she is eligible to submit an application for this grant. The listing of accepted abstracts, by primary author, will be available on the APS website in late December. Please check the abstract acceptance list before applying for a Young Investigator award.

Applications must be completed online by February 10, 2014.

If you have difficulty completing the application, contact APS at 847.375.4715. Applications will be reviewed by the APS Scientific Program Committee, and stipends will be awarded in late February 2014. Notifications will be sent to applicants in March. Those applicants selected for the 2014 meeting will receive their travel grants at the annual meeting.

Discovery Channel to Air Documentary on Chronic Pain

A new documentary, Pain Matters, explores the lives of six individuals with chronic pain and features the opinions of leading national experts in pain management, including 2013 APS Elizabeth Narcessian Award recipient, Penney Cowan.

Featured individuals will share their challenges in managing their conditions, including their validation due to the difficulty in objectively measuring pain, in addition to working with healthcare professionals to develop an individualized treatment plan. The pain management experts will offer their perspective on the science behind chronic pain and how it is treated, the effects of untreated pain, and the future of pain management.

Pain Matters will air on the Discovery Channel on December 7 and 14. The full documentary will also be available online.

Pain Matters was produced by the Discovery Channel in partnership with seven advocacy organizations, including the American Academy of Pain Management, American Academy of Pain Medicine, American Chronic Pain Association, American Pain Society, American Society for Pain Management Nursing, U.S. Pain Foundation, and For Grace. Financial support, clinical input, and other expertise for Pain Matters was provided by Teva Pharmaceuticals.

Visit the Pain Matters website to learn more about the film.

Pediatric Pain Management Intervention Video

With the lack of pediatric evidence-based pain management interventions for common procedures such as immunization, APS member and 2012–2013 Mayday Pain & Society Fellow, Christine Chambers, PhD, wanted to reach parents directly and empower them to advocate for proper pain management for their children.

In collaboration with the The Centre for Pediatric Pain Research, It Doesn’t Have to Hurt: Strategies for Helping Children with Shots and Needles is an engaging new video aimed at healthcare professionals and parents. This video highlights a young child who advises her mother on tactics parents should use and those to avoid to help make the experience of pain management less stressful and more effective for children. The tips in the video are backed by scientific research.

This video is a great tool to share with your colleagues, friends, and family.

Members

Member Spotlight

Neil Singla, MD
Owner, Managing Member
Lotus Clinical Research, LLC
Pasadena, CA

What is your area of specialty?
I am an anesthesiologist by training, but I spend most of my time performing analgesic research studies. I work out of an early phase analgesic research unit located inside Huntington Hospital (Lotus Clinical Research) in Pasadena, CA. My main academic interest lies in improving experimental methods to decrease the alarmingly high rate of false negative analgesic trials we are currently seeing in our field. Of all the methodological flaws that may be contributing to experimental error in analgesic trials, I think some of the most important and “most fixable” are patient-related factors. The fact that patients cannot accurately report pain in analgesic trials is often lamented among researchers. I tend to believe that most subjects are well-meaning and, with proper instruction, can provide reliable data. Improving our process for educating study subjects and clinical trials staff is my main passion and area of specialty.

What initially sparked your interest in working in your field? Briefly describe your career path.
When I was a resident, I loved anesthesia and was very much looking forward to a long clinical career. In my final year of residency, I started to have pain in both of my arms. The pain made it difficult for me to perform the repetitive manipulations that are required in clinical anesthesia. At first I thought it was not a big deal and that the issue would resolve itself, but after a period of time, I could tell that it was a serious problem. As one can imagine, this came as quite a shock, and I was forced to scramble to figure out what I was going to do as an alternate career path. I had always had an interest in clinical research and therefore found a mentor inside my residency program, Lowell Reynolds, MD, who helped me understand the field of anesthetic research. I naturally gravitated toward analgesic studies, because I was having my own complex analgesic problem.

My battle with chronic pain went on for several years, as I continued to perform research in the field. It was a surreal experience, reading and performing research on the cycle of anxiety, depression, and chronic pain—and experiencing these issues simultaneously. I found my path out of this conundrum using the clinical knowledge that I garnered through years of work in the field of analgesics, namely, a multimodal approach that included physical therapy, nonopioid-based medications, and exercise. My arms still bother me to some degree but are more of a nuisance now than a serious issue. I don't have chronic pain anymore and have been grateful that the appropriate clinical advice was available to help me with my situation.

What has been a highlight of your work? Perhaps you and your staff are proud of a certain project or accomplishment.
I think our group has done a nice job when it comes to actually performing analgesic studies. We have done a lot of work in understanding how to select patients and then subsequently gathered appropriate pain data from them without unduly biasing them or exaggerating their natural placebo response. We do this through a multilevel process that includes site education and patient discussion and education. Controlling placebo response and increasing effect size makes analgesic studies more reliable, which in turn, makes it more likely that we will efficiently develop better analgesic therapies.

How has membership in APS been of value to you and your professional development?
I have been a member of APS for several years. For the last couple of years, I have been heavily involved in the Clinical Trials special interest group (SIG), which I now chair. This group has been of immense value for me in that it allows me to get together with fellow researchers and discuss a critical topic that we normally sweep under the rug—our failures. Methodological understandings can only be garnered through a discussion of failures. So many of our missteps remain unpublished (sadly) and, therefore, opportunities to learn are lost. At the SIG conference, we have an opportunity to openly discuss and share what has worked and, more importantly, what has not worked. I learn a lot from discussions I have at the actual SIG meeting and also in the hallways and planned meetings that occur during the APS Annual Scientific Meeting. After the meeting is over, I continue to receive e-mails and phone calls on important topics that originated in the SIG. These conversations are extremely useful, interesting, and productive.

Member Benefit: Journal App

Have you downloaded the new Journal of Pain iPad^® App?
In addition to your monthly printed issues, you are now entitled to the free iPad^® edition of The Journal of Pain.

The Journal of Pain iPad^® edition allows you to get the content you need, where and when you need it.

You can

• bookmark your favorite articles
  
• take notes and highlight within articles
  
• quickly swipe through articles and issues
  
• save to your favorite reader app
  
• get up-to-the-minute alerts on new issues and featured articles by activating the App Alerts.

Download this exciting new member benefit today at on the APS website.

Summaries

The Journal of Pain Highlights

The following highlights summarize selected articles from The Journal of Pain (Volume 14, Number 11, November 2013 Issue).

Determinants of Pain Treatment Response and Nonresponse: Identification of TMD Patient Subgroups
Mark D. Litt, Felipe B. Porto, University of Connecticut Health Center

Tempromandibular pain disorders (TMDs) are characterized by a dysfunction of the TMD joint and cause orofacial pain, masticatory dysfunction, or both. A new study showed that standard treatment approaches yield modest to large improvement in pain, but the addition of cognitive behavioral therapy may be helpful.

Some 10–36 million U.S. adults, primarily women, have TMD pain, making this condition the second most frequent pain disorder following low-back pain. Usually, TMD pain can be managed with conservative treatment using pain medications (NSAIDS), supportive patient education, diet modifications, and an intraoral splint and/or occlusal therapy. Not all patients benefits from this approach, however, and previous research has shown that many TMD patients benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Yet, the reasons behind CBT treatment success or failure are unclear.

Researchers from the University of Connecticut Health Center evaluated 101 TMD patients on a daily basis for 3 months. Study subjects reported having TMD pain for an average of 6.7 years. They were randomly assigned to one of two treatment groups: standard conservative care and standard care with CBT added, which included coping skills training. The purpose of the study was to determine if specific subtypes of treatment nonresponsive TMD patients could be identified and determine if CBT could be helpful. Researchers hypothesized that certain CBT treatment-related outcomes, such as lower retention in treatment and less adaptive changes in coping, self-efficacy, and catastrophizing, would be predictive of treatment nonresponse.

Results showed that nonresponders scored higher on depression scores, exhibited lower self-efficacy and coping ability, and catastrophized more than more adaptive patients. The authors noted they were surprised that nonresponsive patients did not show more joint pathology than patients who responded well to treatment. Despite lack of joint pathology, the nonresponsive subjects were more likely to report being disabled by their TMD pain.

The authors concluded that their research highlights the importance of recognizing the heterogeneous nature of TMD pain, and that treating TMD patients as a homogeneous group is likely to result in suboptimal therapy for many patients. Even though no treatment is successful for all TMD patients, the study shows that certain psychosocial factors can make some patients unresponsive to CBT.

Reports of Chronic Pain in Childhood and Adolescence Among Patients at a Tertiary Care Pain Clinic
Afton L. Hassett, et.al. Department of Anesthesiology, University of Michigan

Although there is strong evidence that individuals who experienced chronic pain during childhood have chronic pain as adults, very few studies have evaluated the characteristics of pain that persists from childhood through adult years. Researchers from the University of Michigan found that one in six (17%) adult pain patients had pain as children or adolescents and that it was widespread and neuropathic with psychological comorbidities and decreased function.

For the study, more than 1,000 patients 18 years and older were evaluated and asked about their pain, family history, physical and psychological limitations, and treatment history. They also were asked about childhood pain. The authors hypothesized that adult patients who reported having pain in childhood are more likely to experience pain of greater severity that is neuropathic in nature and meets clinical criteria for a diagnosis of fibromyalgia.

Results showed that one in six new adult pain patients said they had a history of chronic pain in childhood and were predominantly young females. Their pain tended to be more widespread, neuropathic, and more likely to meet the criteria for fibromyalgia in contrast with subjects who denied having childhood pain. Patients who experienced childhood pain also showed higher levels of anxiety and worse functional status.

The Clinical Journal of Pain Highlights

The following highlights summarize selected articles from The Clinical Journal of Pain (Volume 29, Number 11, November 2013 Issue).

Impact of Iyengar Yoga on Quality of Life in Young Women with Rheumatoid Arthritis
Subhadra Evans, Mona Moieni, Kirsten Lung, Jennie Tsao, Beth Sternlieb, Mihaela Taylor, and Lonnie Zeltzer; Pediatric Pain Program, Department of Pediatrics, David Geffen School of Medicine, and Department of Rheumatology, University of California, Los Angeles

Literature has demonstrated the promise of yoga for older people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA); however, the utility of yoga for younger populations is unknown. This study compared the influence of a 6-week Iyengar Yoga (IY) intervention on the primary outcomes of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) including pain and disability and the secondary outcomes of pain intensity, disease activity, and psychological functioning to that of a usual-care waitlist control group. To test the clinical significance of the program, patients’ (26 women) global improvement compared with baseline was also examined. The second aim was to examine treatment effects and maintenance of treatment gains on all participants who received the IY intervention on the primary outcomes and data from a weekly monitoring report of pain, anxiety, depression, and sleep before, during, and after treatment.

A full range of yoga postures were taught with props to the students, including supine poses, passive backbends, standing poses, supported inversions, twists, seated postures, and forward bends. The classes were sequenced over time, and as students developed skills, more challenging postures were introduced. Individual limitations were addressed as needed in response to pain, range of motion in particular joints, and fatigue.

Compared with the usual-care waitlist condition, the yoga group displayed significantly better improvement on the primary outcomes of pain disability and two of the HRQOL subscales (general health and vitality). There were no group differences on pain, arthritis disability, or disease activity. Many of the psychological outcomes, including fatigue, mood, chronic pain acceptance, mindfulness, and self-efficacy, were significantly improved in the yoga group. The yoga group showed significantly better global improvement compared with controls, with almost half of the group members reporting clinically meaningful improvement of symptoms.

RA patients in their young adult years may particularly need complementary interventions that can be used alongside conventional medicine. The results of the present study indicate that IY is a potentially valuable treatment tool to promote pain acceptance and QOL in young people. Further research should explore the possibility that yoga’s impact upon well-being occurs through pain acceptance.

Effect of a Long-Lasting Multidisciplinary Program on Disability and Fear-Avoidance Behaviors in Patients with Chronic Low Back Pain: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial
Marco Monticone, Simona Ferrante, Barbara Rocca, Paola Baiardi, Fulvio Dal Farra, and Calogero Foti; Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Unit, Scientific Institute of Lissone (Milan), Institute of Care and Research, Salvatore Maugeri Foundation, IRCCS; Neuroengineering and Medical Robotics Laboratory, Bioengineering Department, Politecnico di Milano; Consorzio Valutazioni Biologiche e Farmacologiche, Pavia University and Scientific Institute of Pavia, Institute of Care and Research, Salvatore Maugeri Foundation, IRCCS, Milan; and Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine, Tor Vergata University of Rome, Rome, Italy

Chronic low back pain (CLBP) is one of the most common and demanding problems in primary and secondary care because it causes disability, reduces quality of life (QOL), and prevents participation in usual activities. CLBP is not only mechanically related to spinal pathophysiology but also may be influenced by attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. Psychological factors such as fear-avoidance beliefs, poor coping strategies, and mood alterations tend to influence existence of chronic symptoms, disability, and their perception, and it is widely recognized that kinesiophobia (fear-based movement avoidance) plays a central role in CLBP development and persistence.

The primary aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy on perceived disability of a 1-year multidisciplinary program based on cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) mainly targeted controlling fear-avoidance beliefs and maladaptive behaviors in patients with nonspecific CLBP in comparison with usual exercises during the same time. The secondary aim was to verify the program’s effects on kinesiophobia, pain, and QOL.

The results of this 3-year randomized trial showed that the long-lasting multidisciplinary program based on CBT was superior to an exercise program of similar duration in reducing disability, fear-avoidance beliefs, and pain and enhancing the QOL of patients with chronic LBP. The effects were clinically tangible and lasted for at least 1 year after the intervention ended. The majority of those in the control group experienced no change.

The multidisciplinary program had a strong psychological component based on developing a precise model of change and linking specific cognitive modifications (fear avoidance) to specific outcomes (disability and kinesiophobia). Disability had improved in both groups by the end of the instructive phase but to a greater extent in the experimental group. Satisfactory levels maintained until the end of the 1-year follow-up likely were attributable to monthly patient meetings with a psychologist. In addition to producing a further improvement in the level of kinesiophobia, these visits strengthened self-management of dysfunctional thoughts, consolidated appropriate behaviors, and increased their propensity to exercise.

PAIN Highlights

The following highlights summarize selected articles from PAIN (Volume 154, Number 11, November 2013 Issue).

Sex Differences in Emotion-Related Cognitive Processes in Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Healthy Control Subjects
Jennifer S. Labus, Arpana Gupta, Kristen Coveleskie, Kirsten Tillisch, Lisa Kilpatrick, Johanna Jarcho, Natasha Feier, Joshua Bueller, Jean Stains, Suzanne Smith, Brandall Suyenobu, Bruce Naliboff, Emeran A. Mayer; Oppenheimer Family Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Pain and Interoception Network Repository, Los Angeles; Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA); National Institute of Mental Health, Section of Developmental and Affective Neuroscience, Bethesda, MD; Department of Psychiatry, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA; Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center, UCLA

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) occurs with a slightly higher prevalence in females, and sex-related differences in visceral perception, autonomic nervous system, and brain responses to visceral stimuli have been reported. In studies, male subjects show stronger sympathetic nervous system and hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal axis responses to certain types of stress, whereas female subjects show reduced vagal tone and higher visceral hypersensitivity.

The current study used the paradigm of viewing negative affective (fear and anger) and neutral faces to test sex- and IBS-related differences in brain response associated with cognitive processes. Investigators studied a large sample of male and predominantly premenopausal female subjects with IBS and matched healthy control subjects (HCs) by monitoring brain responses to negative facial emotions (fear and anger) in the NimStim paradigm, which is a variation on Ekman faces. They tested the following hypotheses: (1) Greater brain responses in affective regions and less recruitment of prefrontal inhibitory regions will be observed in IBS subjects compared to HCs, in male compared to female subjects, in male IBS compared to female IBS, and in male HCs compared to female HCs, and (2) greater regional brain activation by using the emotional faces paradigm will be accompanied by changes in the effective connectivity of the emotion-related circuit and its cortical modulatory input.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to measure neural responses to an emotion recognition paradigm, using faces expressing negative emotions (fear and anger). Male IBS subjects plus HCs showed stronger overall brain responses to stimuli than female subjects in the prefrontal cortex, insula, and amygdala. Effective connectivity analyses identified major sex- and disease-related differences in the functioning of brain networks related to prefrontal regions, cingulate, insula, and amygdala. Male subjects had stronger connectivity between anterior cingulate subregions, amygdala, and insula, whereas female subjects had stronger connectivity to and from the prefrontal modulatory regions (medial/dorsolateral cortex). Male IBS subjects demonstrated greater engagement of cortical and affect-related brain circuitry compared to male control subjects and female subjects when viewing faces depicting emotions previously shown to elicit stronger behavioral and brain responses in male subjects.

Greater IBS-related engagement of emotional arousal and cognitive modulatory brain circuitry can be demonstrated in male subjects. However, different stimuli are required in male and female subjects to elicit these disease- and sex-related differences. When viewed together with previously published studies on female IBS subjects using gastrointestinal-specific stimuli, the current findings confirm the general concept that IBS subjects show sex-specific increased responsiveness to emotionally valenced stimuli that are not fully accounted for by anxiety. This increased brain responsiveness to emotionally valenced stimuli may play a role in the process of central sensory amplification of visceral and nonvisceral stimuli that is characteristic for this patient population. The fact that in male subjects altered brain responsiveness could be elicited by a stimulus without any relevance to IBS or pain symptoms is consistent with the concept that brain alterations play a role in IBS pathophysiology, and that IBS is not a gut-specific disorder. These findings emphasize the importance of taking sex-related differences into account when evaluating disease differences and when assessing the importance of symptom-related stressors in the clinic.

Effect of Aging on the Cerebral Processing of Thermal Pain in the Human Brain
Ming-Tsung Tseng, Ming-Chang Chiang, Kong Yazhuo, Chi-Chao Chao, Wen-Yih I. Tseng, Sung-Tsang Hsieh; Department of Neurology and Department of Medical Imaging, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan; Section of Neurology, Department of Medicine, Far-Eastern Memorial Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan; Center for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Nuffield Division of Anaesthetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK; Department of Biomedical Engineering, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan; Center for Optoelectronic Biomedicine, Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, and Graduate Institute of Brain and Mind Sciences, National Taiwan University College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan

Pain perception changes during normal aging, but its neural substrate remains unclear. Considering that brain hemodynamic responses to sensations decrease during aging, investigators hypothesized that a similar decline in pain processing also occurs.

It is not yet known whether aging is accompanied by changes in cerebral activity that are related to specific qualities of pain. The present study examined whether the influence of age on distinct pain psychophysics is mediated by specific structures in the central nociceptive system. A group of healthy participants with a large age range was recruited to elucidate age-related functional and structural changes in pain-processing brain regions. Investigators hypothesized that aging would accompany a change in the psychophysical measure of the distinct quality of pain, which would be mediated by neural activity in the cerebral nociceptive system. The relationships between painful heat stimulation to the foot and functional magnetic resonance imaging signals and gray matter volume in 23 healthy subjects (ages 25 to 71 years) were examined.

Age affected the sensory quality of heat pain as well as responses in corresponding cerebral structures (the insular cortex [IC] and somatosensory cortex [S1]). This effect was independent of age-related changes in gray matter volume. Above all, this effect was mediated by neural response to pain stimuli in the middle IC and S1. These results not only extend the previously documented effects of aging on physiology of heat pain-evoked potentials but also provide a mechanistic explanation of the influence of age on pain perception.

Considering that aging is related to changes in both peripheral nerves and the spinal cord, the mediation effect of the middle IC on the relationship between age and overall pain perception suggests that there is a convergence of age-related alterations from various anatomical levels of the pain neuraxis. The decline in nociceptive processing during advancing age may be attributed to decay in the function of the cerebral pain-processing areas, which may not always be detected using simple nociceptive behavioral measures such as pain sensitivity or withdrawal latency to laboratory-induced pain. The engagement of the insula provides a neural basis of age-associated deficit in brain-mediated complex behaviors upon nociceptive stimulation, which sheds light on a new research direction to disentangle the relationship between aging and pain.

Research

Rita Allen Foundation Request for Applications Now Open

The Rita Allen Foundation (RAF) and APS announce the 2014 Rita Allen Foundation Award in Pain. The RAF and APS may award two grants in the amount of $50,000 annually, for a period of up to 3 years to those research proposals demonstrating the greatest merit and potential for success.

Candidates must have completed their training and provide persuasive evidence of distinguished achievement or extraordinary promise in basic science research in pain. Candidates should be in the early stages of their career with an appointment at faculty level. The entire award is to be allocated to projects specifically chosen by the recipient. Overhead is not supported.

To learn more about the Rita Allen Foundation Award in Pain, please visit the APS website.

Call for Applications for the 2014 Clinical Centers of Excellence Program Now Open

The call for applications for the 2014 APS Clinical Centers of Excellence (CCOE) in Pain Management Awards is open through November 29. The CCOE Program annually awards the APS Center of Excellence designation to interdisciplinary healthcare teams that provide the most distinguished, comprehensive pain care. Pain management programs from across the United States—small and large, rural and urban, community and university-based—are all eligible to apply. Selection of awardees is based on judgment of the quality of services provided, not the size or type of the program.

CCOE program recipients from 2007 to 2010 who have not already received the award for a second time are eligible to apply. Past recipients must provide evidence of sustained excellence and fulfillment of CCOE assessment criteria.

APS has recognized 35 Centers of Excellence since its inception in 2007. This distinction is one of APS’s highest honors in the area of clinical treatment. To learn more about the program, past recipients, and how to apply, visit the APS CCOE webpage.

Clinical Psychology Fellowship with Emphasis on Pain Psychology Seeks Applicants

The Tampa VA Medical Center is currently seeking applicants for its postdoctoral fellowship in clinical psychology with an emphasis in pain psychology.

The position is a 1-year fellowship with various experiences treating chronic pain patients, including training in the only inpatient interdisciplinary pain program in the U.S. Department for Veterans Affairs system. The program emphasizes clinical activity as well as research and professional development.

The deadline to apply is January 1, 2014. Visit the VA website for a more details. Direct inquiries can be sent by e-mail to Daniel Agliata at Daniel.Agliata@va.gov.

Important Dates

Clinical Centers of Excellence Award Program

Deadline: Friday, November 29
More information

Fundamentals of Pain Management: An Interdisciplinary Primer

Deadline: Friday, January 10, 2014
More information

Rita Allen Foundation Award in Pain

Deadline: Friday, January 17
More information

Call for Submissions

Do you have a topic that is relevant to APS members? Is there a member who is doing work that APS should spotlight? Is there a funding opportunity APS members need to know about? Please submit stories, events, and more to enews@americanpainsociety.org for consideration.