Project description
The neural mechanisms involved in chronic pain
Chronic pain is one of medicine’s biggest challenges because the neural circuits that sustain it overlap with those governing sensation, thought, and emotion, blurring the line between physical injury and lived experience. The ERC-funded PAIN ENSEMBLES project will explore how groups of co-active neurons in the neocortex affect pain perception and adapt to past pain and fear memories. Using advanced techniques in mouse models, the project will identify these pain-related neuronal ensembles, assess their connectivity and activity, and understand their role in the transition from acute to chronic pain. It will also examine the salience network’s impact on pain perception and investigate non-invasive methods for pain relief by reversing neuronal plasticity.
Objective
Chronic pain remains a fundamental unsolved puzzle in biology and an unmet global challenge in clinical practice. Progress is limited by major gaps in knowledge on neural substrates, owing to overwhelming redundancy of implicated regions and pathways with several pain-unrelated sensory, cognitive and emotional functions as well as lack of understanding on the origins of plasticity and cellular substrates for diverse psychosocial and environmental influences on pain. Here we propose that neocortical neuronal ensembles, i.e. discrete cohorts of co-active neurons intermingled within seemingly redundant pathways, represent a mechanistic correlate for imparting specificity to pain perception, while also providing adaptive flexibility to context and introspective bodily states, and serve as convergent substrates for divergent influences, such as past experience of pain, fear memory and expectation. Using cutting-edge in vivo methods, such as multiphoton imaging of activity and structure, electrophysiological parallel recordings of hundreds of neurons, fine-grained behavioral analyses, activity-based cell tagging approaches, opto-chemogenetic manipulations and single cell transcriptomics in mouse models of acute and chronic pain, we aim to (i) identify neocortical pain ensembles that delineate pain from other sensory percepts, valence states and cognitive functions, and determine their composition, connectivity, coordinated activity in local and across distant networks and functional relevance to pain, (ii) study their dynamic plasticity over the transition from acute to chronic pain and delineate bottom-up (peripheral-spinal) and top-down (brain intrinsic) influences, with a focus on studying the role of the salience network in channeling context, expectation and fear memory and its dysfunction in chronic pain and (iii) study the potential of reversing plasticity of neuronal ensembles by non-invasive neurostimulation and behavioral approaches for achieving pain relief.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
-
HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
See all projects funded under this programme
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
See all projects funded under this funding scheme
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2023-ADG
See all projects funded under this callHost institution
Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
69120 Heidelberg
Germany
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.