What do migraine, irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis have in common? All involve chronic pain.
A new database featuring hundreds of brain scans and other key clinical information will help researchers tease out similarities and differences between these and many other chronic-pain conditions, helping to accelerate research and treatment development.
The Gail and Gerald Oppenheimer Family Center for Neurobiology of Stress at UCLA will serves as the main hub for this new Pain and Interoception Imaging Network (PAIN), the first-ever standardized database for brain imaging associated with chronic pain. So far, 14 institutions in North America and Europe are participating.
Building upon their experiences creating a similar but smaller network to study pelvic pain, the UCLA team is now developing this larger chronic-pain network with the help of a $300,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health.
"We are now recognizing that chronic pain is a brain disease, and if we want to treat it more effectively, we need to better understand and treat the mechanisms in the brain that are driving it," said Dr. Emeran Mayer, a professor of medicine in the divisions of digestive diseases, physiology and psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and executive director of the Gail and Gerald Oppenheimer Family Center for Neurobiology of Stress at UCLA.
According to Mayer, brain imaging is one of the most promising technologies for breakthrough findings in chronic pain. However, research is currently significantly limited, due to the fact that most institutions can only support small studies on their own and lack access to large samples of patients. In addition, there is no standardization of acquired data, making it difficult to combine brain scans from multiple investigators that are obtained using different scanners, techniques and sets of clinical data.
That will change with the new PAIN. The aim is for the network to include information from more than a thousand patients, including both adults and children.
In addition to brain scans, researchers will also have access to clinical and biological information on patients—the so-called "metadata"—including symptom measures; psychosocial factors; gene expression; immune system information; data on bacteria in the intestines, known as gut microbiota; and environmental data. Researchers can then develop large, overlapping data sets to pinpoint similarities and differences among chronic-pain conditions and correlate brain scans with clinical metadata.
"Like a fingerprint, researchers will be able to pick out distinct patterns from the scans of individuals with each pain condition and, combined with additional information provided by the network, assess how chronic pain manifests differently between men and women, across the life span, or between conditions," said Dr. Bruce Naliboff, a professor in the departments of medicine and psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the Geffen School of Medicine and co-director of the Gail and Gerald Oppenheimer Family Center for Neurobiology of Stress.
Dr. Kirsten Tillisch, a UCLA associate professor of digestive diseases who directs the neuroimaging core at the Oppenheimer Center, points out that in the future, PAIN will also include information about the tens of trillions of microbes that make up the bacteria living in the intestines. She notes that each patient's gut microbiota is unique, like a signature card.
"Researchers are now exploring the connection between the brain and gut, and the type of bacteria living in the intestine may also play a role in some forms of chronic visceral pain," said Tillisch.
The standardized brain scans will include structural data on grey and white matter and on intrinsic oscillations of the brain—"resting state scans." Such scans are obtained when the brain is not engaged in a particular task.
Mayer adds that PAIN may also help researchers in the future identify and pinpoint appropriate treatments by targeting subsets of conditions.
"The more information we can gather about each individual chronic-pain condition, the better we'll be at predicting how subsets of patients will react to therapies," he said.
Explore further: Study suggests brain is hard-wired for chronic pain
Medical Xpress on facebook
Related Stories
Study suggests brain is hard-wired for chronic pain
Sep 17, 2013
The structure of the brain may predict whether a person will suffer chronic low back pain, according to researchers who used brain scans. The results, published in the journal Pain, support the growing idea t ...
Predicting who will have chronic pain
Sep 17, 2013
Abnormalities in the structure of the brain predispose people to develop chronic pain after a lower back injury, according to new Northwestern Medicine research. The findings could lead to changes in the way physicians treat ...
Changing gut bacteria through diet affects brain function, study shows
May 28, 2013
UCLA researchers now have the first evidence that bacteria ingested in food can affect brain function in humans. In an early proof-of-concept study of healthy women, they found that women who regularly consumed beneficial ...
Discovery could eventually help diagnose and treat chronic pain
Dec 20, 2012
More than 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain. But treating and studying chronic pain is complex and presents many challenges. Scientists have long searched for a method to objectively measure ...
Gene makeup may help explain amputees' chronic pain
Oct 14, 2013
(HealthDay)—Soldiers with certain gene variations seem more likely than others to have chronic pain after limb amputation, a small study says.
Recommended for you
Team takes first step toward macular dystrophy gene therapy
20 hours ago
Vitelliform macular dystrophy, also known as Best disease, is one of a group of vision-robbing conditions called bestrophinopathies that affect children and young adults. Caused by inherited mutations in ...
Milk-maker hormone may help liver regenerate
21 hours ago
The hormone prolactin is probably best known for its role in stimulating milk production in mothers after giving birth. But prolactin also has an important function in the liver. This organ has the highest number of prolactin ...
Iron supplementation can provide cognitive and physical benefits to anemic children
23 hours ago
Giving daily iron supplements to anemic primary-school–aged children can have cognitive and physical benefits, according to a study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).
Scientists unravel mechanisms in chronic itching
23 hours ago
Anyone who has suffered through sleepless nights due to uncontrollable itching knows that not all itching is the same. New research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis explains why.
Sound preconditioning prevents ototoxic drug-induced hearing loss in mice
23 hours ago
The death of sensory hair cells in the ear results in irreversible hearing loss. Several classes of drugs, including aminoglycoside antibiotics and chemotherapy drugs are known to kill hair cells; however, in many cases the ...
Towards a better understanding of inherited hearing loss
23 hours ago
A team of researchers led by Dr. Michel Cayouette at the IRCM made an important discovery, published online yesterday by the scientific journal Developmental Cell, that could better explain some inherited forms of hearin ...
User comments
© Medical Xpress 2011-2013, Phys.org network
What do migraine, irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis have in common? All involve chronic pain.
A new database featuring hundreds of brain scans and other key clinical information will help researchers tease out similarities and differences between these and many other chronic-pain conditions, helping to accelerate research and treatment development.
The Gail and Gerald Oppenheimer Family Center for Neurobiology of Stress at UCLA will serves as the main hub for this new Pain and Interoception Imaging Network (PAIN), the first-ever standardized database for brain imaging associated with chronic pain. So far, 14 institutions in North America and Europe are participating.
Building upon their experiences creating a similar but smaller network to study pelvic pain, the UCLA team is now developing this larger chronic-pain network with the help of a $300,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health.
"We are now recognizing that chronic pain is a brain disease, and if we want to treat it more effectively, we need to better understand and treat the mechanisms in the brain that are driving it," said Dr. Emeran Mayer, a professor of medicine in the divisions of digestive diseases, physiology and psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and executive director of the Gail and Gerald Oppenheimer Family Center for Neurobiology of Stress at UCLA.
According to Mayer, brain imaging is one of the most promising technologies for breakthrough findings in chronic pain. However, research is currently significantly limited, due to the fact that most institutions can only support small studies on their own and lack access to large samples of patients. In addition, there is no standardization of acquired data, making it difficult to combine brain scans from multiple investigators that are obtained using different scanners, techniques and sets of clinical data.
That will change with the new PAIN. The aim is for the network to include information from more than a thousand patients, including both adults and children.
In addition to brain scans, researchers will also have access to clinical and biological information on patients—the so-called "metadata"—including symptom measures; psychosocial factors; gene expression; immune system information; data on bacteria in the intestines, known as gut microbiota; and environmental data. Researchers can then develop large, overlapping data sets to pinpoint similarities and differences among chronic-pain conditions and correlate brain scans with clinical metadata.
"Like a fingerprint, researchers will be able to pick out distinct patterns from the scans of individuals with each pain condition and, combined with additional information provided by the network, assess how chronic pain manifests differently between men and women, across the life span, or between conditions," said Dr. Bruce Naliboff, a professor in the departments of medicine and psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the Geffen School of Medicine and co-director of the Gail and Gerald Oppenheimer Family Center for Neurobiology of Stress.
Dr. Kirsten Tillisch, a UCLA associate professor of digestive diseases who directs the neuroimaging core at the Oppenheimer Center, points out that in the future, PAIN will also include information about the tens of trillions of microbes that make up the bacteria living in the intestines. She notes that each patient's gut microbiota is unique, like a signature card.
"Researchers are now exploring the connection between the brain and gut, and the type of bacteria living in the intestine may also play a role in some forms of chronic visceral pain," said Tillisch.
The standardized brain scans will include structural data on grey and white matter and on intrinsic oscillations of the brain—"resting state scans." Such scans are obtained when the brain is not engaged in a particular task.
Mayer adds that PAIN may also help researchers in the future identify and pinpoint appropriate treatments by targeting subsets of conditions.
"The more information we can gather about each individual chronic-pain condition, the better we'll be at predicting how subsets of patients will react to therapies," he said.
Explore further: Study suggests brain is hard-wired for chronic pain
Medical Xpress on facebook
Related Stories
Study suggests brain is hard-wired for chronic pain
Sep 17, 2013
The structure of the brain may predict whether a person will suffer chronic low back pain, according to researchers who used brain scans. The results, published in the journal Pain, support the growing idea t ...
Predicting who will have chronic pain
Sep 17, 2013
Abnormalities in the structure of the brain predispose people to develop chronic pain after a lower back injury, according to new Northwestern Medicine research. The findings could lead to changes in the way physicians treat ...
Changing gut bacteria through diet affects brain function, study shows
May 28, 2013
UCLA researchers now have the first evidence that bacteria ingested in food can affect brain function in humans. In an early proof-of-concept study of healthy women, they found that women who regularly consumed beneficial ...
Discovery could eventually help diagnose and treat chronic pain
Dec 20, 2012
More than 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain. But treating and studying chronic pain is complex and presents many challenges. Scientists have long searched for a method to objectively measure ...
Gene makeup may help explain amputees' chronic pain
Oct 14, 2013
(HealthDay)—Soldiers with certain gene variations seem more likely than others to have chronic pain after limb amputation, a small study says.
Recommended for you
Team takes first step toward macular dystrophy gene therapy
20 hours ago
Vitelliform macular dystrophy, also known as Best disease, is one of a group of vision-robbing conditions called bestrophinopathies that affect children and young adults. Caused by inherited mutations in ...
Milk-maker hormone may help liver regenerate
21 hours ago
The hormone prolactin is probably best known for its role in stimulating milk production in mothers after giving birth. But prolactin also has an important function in the liver. This organ has the highest number of prolactin ...
Iron supplementation can provide cognitive and physical benefits to anemic children
23 hours ago
Giving daily iron supplements to anemic primary-school–aged children can have cognitive and physical benefits, according to a study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).
Scientists unravel mechanisms in chronic itching
23 hours ago
Anyone who has suffered through sleepless nights due to uncontrollable itching knows that not all itching is the same. New research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis explains why.
Sound preconditioning prevents ototoxic drug-induced hearing loss in mice
23 hours ago
The death of sensory hair cells in the ear results in irreversible hearing loss. Several classes of drugs, including aminoglycoside antibiotics and chemotherapy drugs are known to kill hair cells; however, in many cases the ...
Towards a better understanding of inherited hearing loss
23 hours ago
A team of researchers led by Dr. Michel Cayouette at the IRCM made an important discovery, published online yesterday by the scientific journal Developmental Cell, that could better explain some inherited forms of hearin ...
User comments
© Medical Xpress 2011-2013, Phys.org network
0 comments:
Post a Comment