Two weeks ago was the occasion of the NIH Pain Consortium 7th Annual Symposium on Advances in Pain Research. It was a great meeting, and we heard some terrific science presented. Modern neuroscience is clearly opening up our understanding of how the brain processes painful stimuli, and is yielding insights about how emotional states (or even placebo pills) modify the processing of pain in the brain. We heard about intriguing work on novel therapeutic targets, such as the adenosine pathway, a long-time scientific interest of mine, and learned about a number of highly innovative approaches to the development of new analgesic drugs. I also really enjoyed hearing about rigorous studies testing nonpharmacological approaches, such as massage, behavioral therapies, and mindfulness meditation.
Nevertheless, all is not well…
Source: http://nccam.nih.gov/research/blog/painsymposium?nav=rss
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