Starts:
Tuesday, September 20th
10:45am-12:15pm EDT
Category:
Topical Workshop
Tracks:
Novel Experimental/Analytic Approaches/Tools
Room
718 B
Functional Biomarkers of Nociceptive Signal Processing – Back-translation of Human Studies to Preclinical Models
There is a great need for functional biomarkers of nociceptive signal processing and pain translating from animals to humans. Drugs that are efficacious analgesics in preclinical models often prove to have negligible clinical efficacy. For more efficient analgesic development, robust translational measures are needed that can unequivocally prove that a drug has bound to and engaged the target of interest at high enough levels to have a biologically meaningful effect. In this workshop we will present how analgesic drug efficacy is tested in animal models and the main gaps in these preclinical models. We will show the main neurophysiological and neuroimaging biomarkers and provide evidence of their usefulness to assess and quantify nociceptive signal processing and pain. More specifically, we will show how spinal cord and brainstem excitability investigations in humans (i.e. N13 component of the somatosensory evoked potentials, the nociceptive RIII reflex and the R2-blink reflex recovery cycle) reliably reflect dorsal horn and brainstem excitability changes due to central sensitization. We will provide evidence that functional neuroimaging can be used for assessing how the different drugs affect specific brain areas and how treatment-induced brain changes could be used to make generalizable inferences about pain relief.
