Breakthrough Research Published: “Exploring Pain Relief Through Opioid Actions on Spinal Cord Circuits”

September 21, 2022

Pain Management Research Institute (PMRI) Team Leader and researcher, Karin Aubrey, and researcher Yo Otsu, are celebrating a major win with a paper recently published in the prestigious global Journal of Physiology.

With seed funding from the Pain Foundation, Karin formed a team in 2017 to work on fundamental research uncovering how the brain works and what changes in brain function when people experience chronic pain.

The Pain Foundation has continued funding her team and project, with the resulting world-first discovery now shared with the international scientific and medical communities.

Using modern technologies that have only been available in the past decade, Karin’s team was able to study for the first time single connections between the brainstem and spinal cord, a vital link for understanding the brain’s involvement in chronic pain and improving its management.

“The Pain Foundation was instrumental in my team being able to carry out this research and we are immensely grateful for its support and ongoing financial contributions,” Karin said.

“Funding is critical to our ability to do our jobs and the Pain Foundation’s commitment meant we could focus on our research without having to be constantly concerned about finding revenue to make it happen.

“We owe a big debt of gratitude to the Pain Foundation and the Kennard Family, and are thrilled with the outcome.”

Here is THE LINK to an abstract of the JoP article.

*The Pain Management Research Institute (“PMRI”) is one of the key groups in the Kolling Institute’s Neuroscience & Pain Priority Research Area (PRA) at University of Sydney and Royal North Shore Hospital.

AN END TO PAIN?
To find out more or to help research into understanding pain please contact Louise at the Pain Foundation on email media@painfoundation.org.au.

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