Grand Challenge on Chronic Pain - NIH

The Challenge

Chronic pain is a major public health problem, and treatments are limited. More research is needed to fully understand how acute pain evolves into chronic pain, and who will transition from acute to chronic pain. 

The Blueprint Grand Challenge on Chronic Pain seeks to shed light on the molecular, cellular and circuit-level changes – or neuroplasticity – underlying chronic pain. A key element of the program is to form research collaborations between experts on pain and experts on neuroplasticity.

Mechanisms of Support

The Grand Challenge on Chronic Pain supports research through:

• Multi-PI R01 grants focused on understanding the maladaptive changes that occur during the transition from acute to chronic pain.
• Competitive revisions that propose a collaborative, one year pilot study or a new specific aim associated with an active NIH grant. These initial studies are expected to lead to long term collaborations focused on chronic pain.

Mechanisms Regulating Vesicular Axonal Transport Following Nerve Injury

Valeria Cavalli

Washington University St. Louis

Altered Sensibility Following Peripheral Nerve Damage

Clifford Woolf

Children's Hospital Boston

Preventing Transition of Acute-to-Chronic Neuropathic Pain: Models, Mechanisms & Interventions

Linda Watkins

University of Colorado at Boulder

VGF, Critical Role in the Transition from Acute to Chronic Pain

Lyudmila Vulchanova

University of Minnesota Twin Cities

Epigenetic and Genetic Contributors to Chronic Neuropathic Pain

Allan Basbaum

University of California San Francisco

TSC2 and ERK signaling in Motor-Dependent Regeneration and Neuropathic Pain

Valeria Cavalli

Washington University St. Louis

Epigenetic Mechanisms of Neuropathic Pain

Hui-Lin Pan

University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center

Hemichannels, Astrocytic Release, and Neuropathic Pain

Ru-Rong Ji

Duke University

Neuronal Subtype-Specific Plasticity in the Acute to Chronic Pain Transition

David Ginty

Johns Hopkins University

Cortico-striatal Plasticity in the Transition to Chronic Pain

Vania Apkarian

Northwestern University

Proteolysis of Myelin as a Source of Neuropathic Pain

Veronica Shubayev

University of California San Diego

http://neuroscienceblueprint.nih.gov/chronic_pain.htm