Understanding the brain mechanisms of chronic pain

Sponsored by The Chinese Association of Physiological Sciences

The problems of pain, in particular, chronic pain, are an increasing burden on healthcare systems and society at large. Population-based epidemiological studies suggest 20-30% people over the globe suffer from chronic pain and/or pain-associated morbidities, such as insomnia, amnesia, cognitive decline, disabilities, and even depression. Although knowledge of molecular and cellular mechanisms of nociception at the levels of nociceptors (pain sensors) and the spinal cord dorsal horn has been greatly gained in the past several decades, the mechanisms of pain, especially chronic pain, at cortical and subcortical levels are still less known. In this symposium, the following questions will be addressed: (1) How many faces of pain in the brain? This is a fundamental question open for discussion. The audience will learn, at least, that pain has multiple dimensions of the brain functions, including sensory-discriminative, affective-motivational, and cognitive-evaluative aspects. (2) How is noxious information produced by peripheral tissue or nerve damage processed by the brain? Neuroimaging studies can tell that acute or physiological pain may be probably represented and processed by a hierarchically-interconnected neural network in the brain (so-called ‘pain matrix’), however, the brain becomes more complicated under chronic or pathological pain conditions. (3) What is the impact of chronic pain on the brain functions? There is increasing body of evidence showing that pain, when becomes persistent or chronic, may cause not only sensory dysfunctions (spontaneous pain, hyperalgesia and allodynia), but also various brain dysfunctions such as anxiety, insomnia, amnesia, and depression, leading to maladaptive behaviors of pain. (4) Are there any spatial and temporal synaptic changes at the cortical and subcortical levels responsible for the maladaptive behaviors of pain? In this 2 h-session, there will be five advanced lectures given by three senior and two junior internationally-renowned pain researchers working in this challenging field.