Clinical Pain Research

Research leader Eva Kosek. Photo: Mikael Wallerstedt

Pain research includes a large number of projects aimed at understanding how pain occurs, why some people develop long-term pain and how pain can best be treated.

Chronic pain is a major health problem affecting approximately 10% of the general population in Europe and is globally a dominating cause of reduced function and disability. Pain is generally regarded as a symptom of tissue injury or inflammation (nociceptive pain) or as a symptom of a disease or a lesion in the nervous system (neuropahtic pain). However, there are also primary pain conditions, where the pain results from altered nociception (nociplastic pain) and is classified as a disease, rather than a symptom. The pain research at the Department of Surgical Sciences, Uppsala University consists of several projects with the aim to determine the causes of chronic pain, why certain individuals develop chronic pain while others, with similar injuries/diseases do not, and how the treatment of the various types of chronic pain can be optimized.

The goup's main research questions are: How does the nervous- and the immune-system interact in different types of chronic pain? Why does a certain type of nerve injury lead to the development of chronic neuropathic pain in certain individuals but not in others? What are the associations between sleep and pain? How do psychological mechanism affect pain and how can psychological treatments in the context of persistent pain be optimized? Why does opioid tolerance, dependence and addiction develop and how can it be prevented? How does invasive neurostimulation work and when to use it?

The projects:

  • Neuroimmune interactions in chronic pain
  • The development of neuropathic pain following peripheral nerve injury
  • Pain and sleep
  • Psychological processes in persistent pain
  • Opioid treatment and addiction
  • Pain treatment using invasive nerve stimulation techniques
  • Postoperative pain

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