Descrizione del progetto
Una tecnica nuova ed efficace per alleviare il dolore
Il dolore è un segnale di avvertimento vitale, un segno che qualcosa potrebbe non funzionare. Oltre il 10 % degli adulti soffre di dolore cronico o persistente che non può essere alleviato, nonostante farmaci e cure. Il progetto PainPersist, finanziato dall’UE, propone un approccio radicalmente nuovo e condurrà studi sperimentali sullo sviluppo precoce della persistenza del dolore. Progetterà interventi psicologici diretti alle aspettative negative, al controllo e alla gratificazione in studi sul dolore a lungo termine. Sulla base di moderni metodi neurobiologici quali la risonanza magnetica, PainPersist studierà i meccanismi dei trattamenti che potrebbero prevenire lo sviluppo di dolore persistente. Verrà sviluppato un innovativo dispositivo di valutazione del dolore per consentire agli utenti di ottenere il controllo percepito del dolore e consentire il sollievo dalle sofferenze.
Obiettivo
Persistent or chronic pain is a key medical and societal problem. In the last decades, biomedical research has undertaken enormous efforts to develop treatments for persistent pain, but the results have been disappointing. This project proposes a radical shift, namely to target the early development of pain persistence and to investigate psychological interventions directed at negative expectations, control and reward in experimental long-term pain studies. A methodological work package will develop novel tools, such as MR spectroscopy of the spinal cord, to track metabolic changes related to persistent pain, and to identify the mechanisms of the proposed interventions. All studies are guided by an integrative model outlining how psychological factors, such as negative expectations and loss of control, can affect the development of pain persistence, and more importantly, how to counteract this process. We will, for example, augment the perception of pain decreases by expectations or use reward manipulations to reinstantiate the effectiveness of the pain modulatory system. Finally, the model proposes that the inability to control pain leads to a state of helplessness. Consequently, the role of helplessness will be investigated and we will test interventions with the goal to allow subjects to regain control over their pain. This will be possible, through the development of a novel pain assessment device, which can be used to detect spontaneous pain decreases and prompt the subject to perform an action (i.e. self-administer a putative treatment). Through the illusion of control, subjects perceive that their action is causal for the pain relief, even though it is actually pain reductions that trigger their action. In the future, this will also allow treatment of patients in which pain is already persistent, and allow them to regain perceived control over, and hence reduce, their pain.
Campo scientifico
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
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Meccanismo di finanziamento
ERC-ADG - Advanced GrantIstituzione ospitante
20251 Hamburg
Germania