Case study Investigating
arthritis pain

How will interdisciplinary research enhance understanding the mechanisms and effects of pain?

Researchers at The University of Nottingham are combining their expertise across disciplines to realise the ambitions of the Arthritis Research UK Pain Centre.

Over the next five years experts from five departments across four Schools will undertake innovative research to achieve a greater understanding of pain and come up with more effective ways of dealing with it.

Highlights

A lot is already known about the interplay of various factors that cause pain, however, the understanding of how all those factors contribute to the final experience of pain is incomplete.  Researchers at the Centre are studying evidence from imaging techniques, such as MRI, to find out how an individual’s way of processing pain signals may explain why their experience of pain may not necessarily match the severity of their joint damage seen on x-rays.

Using osteoarthritis of the knee as their model, they plan to: look at the social context of pain by finding out their patients’ understanding of their pain and what they expect from treatment; investigate the role of peripheral pain and central pain and try to produce new compounds to target pain pathways; run clinical trials aimed at improving the use of existing drug therapies; and test new painkillers which may be produced over the next five years.

Expertise

The research team is led by Dr David Walsh, Associate Professor (Clinical Reader) in Academic Rheumatology and Honorary Consultant with Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and Deputy Director Professor Victoria Chapman, and includes Professor Nadia Lincoln, Professor Dorothee Auer, Dr Sara Kelly, Professor Brigitte Scammell, Professor Mike Doherty and Dr Weiya Zhang.