“Making pain mechanisms visible”

 

Pain and Nociception Research Group is the research unit of the Pain Centre and Department of Anaesthesiology, Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, Netherlands. PNRG has three main goals: 

• To initiate, enable and support the shift from symptom-based to mechanism-orientated approaches to pain medicine
•  To set up technological and clinical platforms for translational pain research targeting tangible clinical benefit and full integration of human and animal models in all research phases
• To establish epidemiological approaches to clinical data collection permitting ongoing knowledge generation about pain disorders and leading to ongoing quality management

PNRG has established multidisciplinary collaborations both within and without Radboud University to investigate acute pain and chronic pain as well as pain transition from acute to chronic. PNRG has research programmes covering acute pain (mainly in the perioperative context), chronic pain (particularly complex visceral pain, CRPS and low back pain), and pain chronification (principally in the context of surgery).

A major focus is the development and validation of objective diagnostic methods in the field of pain medicine permitting insight into underlying pain mechanisms. To this end, PNRG has already set up programmes covering quantitative sensory testing (QST), neurophysiological testing (e.g. R3 reflex, evoked potentials, event-related potentials) and advanced neuroimaging techniques (fMRI). These programmes are interdisciplinary and international in nature, involving medical, scientific and technical partners in collaboration.