Back Pain Psychology: Grand Challenge on Chronic Pain

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