Neurotechnology to improve Chronic Pain management?In the Netherlands alone, more than 3 million people suffer from chronic pain. In many cases, the underlying causes are unclear and treatment only provides limited pain relief. In the past decades, many results from fundamental and preclinical research have indicated the existence of mechanisms causing functional changes in the peripheral and central nociceptive pathways that can drive the development and maintenance of chronic pain. However, the usability of these insights for diagnostic interpretation and successful treatment of patients remains limited as long as these mechanisms cannot be observed properly in individual patients – leaving a key question of many clinical cases unanswered: What are the (dis)functional properties of this patient’s neural pathways between – or even without - the occurrence of (potential) tissue damage and the emergence of a pain experience? Do these properties explain chronic pain and can they predict the outcome of treatment? What does it take to actually measure such properties in a clinical setting? In this symposium, we will highlight some key challenges on the roadmap from fundamental research to implementation of experimentally demonstrated methods and technology in the clinical practice.Read more
