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Chronic pain in arthritis and fibromyalgia
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2009 – 2012 Postdoctoral Fellowship Endogenous pain control mechanisms in patients with chronic painProfessor A. Jones & Dr W. El-Deredy |
Professor Jones is Professor of Neuro-Rheumatology and Leader of the Human Pain Research Group at Hope Hospital, Manchester University.
Dr El-Deredy is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychological Sciences, Manchester University.
Over the past 50 years substantial efforts have been put into the development of new analgesics based on tests in animals. So far, the yield from this approach has been disappointingly low. In one experiment, over 100 mice were used to test reaction times to hot and cold painful stimuli and the difference when the mice were give pain relief drugs.
The Human Pain Group at Manchester has been taking a different approach. They have used functional neuroimaging techniques to identify the brain structures involved in pain perception. They have begun to determine some of the normal and abnormal mechanisms of pain perception in patients with different types of chronic pain.
This DHT-funded project aims to develop a new approach to the development of pain therapies in humans, which will cut out the need for many animal ‘models’ of pain. The work aims to establish the measurement of experimental placebo responses as a way of assessing activity of endogenous control systems, in both normal volunteers and patients with chronic pain.
Professor Jones’s group has already established an experimental placebo technique in normal volunteers, and this work will provide the second step in establishing experimental placebo responses as a surrogate marker of endogenous pain control in patients. If successful, the intent is to use this to develop holistic therapeutic approaches to enhance the endogenous control mechanisms in patients. It is likely that these approaches will benefit patients with many types of chronic pain, including cancer pain, although the current project is focused on patients with arthritic pain, with and without co-existent fibromyalgia.
This approach is likely to inform new and better targeted strategies for the treatment of pain. In the long-term this is a more efficient way to develop new therapies and will substantially reduce animal experimentation.