Editor’s note: This seminar is the latest event in a series of seminars launched in May 2020 to help keep the pain research community connected during the COVID-19 pandemic and to provide all members of our community with virtual educational opportunities. The seminar series is supported by the Center for Advanced Pain Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas, US.
The IASP Pain Research Forum hosted a seminar with Michele Curatolo, MD, PhD, University of Washington, Seattle, US, on Wednesday, February 10, 2021, from 12-1 PM Eastern Standard Time (US)/5-6 PM GMT/6-7 PM CET. A Q&A session moderated by Lars Arendt-Nielsen, Dr. Med., PhD, Aalborg University, Denmark, followed the presentation.
A recording of the seminar is available on the IASP Pain Education Resource Center here.
Here is an abstract from the presenter
This seminar will highlight the role of quantitative sensory testing (QST) in pain research and clinical practice, with a focus on:
- Assessment of somatosensory function relevant to pain
- Potential to serve as prognostic biomarkers (predicting the course of pain and disability)
- Potential to serve as predictive biomarkers (predicting the efficacy of interventions)
- QST phenotypes linked to mechanisms of human pain
The seminar will highlight the status of current QST research, stressing:
- What has been achieved
- What cannot be achieved
- Future opportunities offered by QST in mechanistic studies of human pain
- Challenges and opportunities for use of QST in clinical practice
About the presenter
Michele Curatolo, MD, PhD, is professor of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, and Endowed Professor for Medical Education and Research at the University of Washington, Seattle. He received his MD at the University of Messina, Italy, completed his PhD at the University of Aalborg, Denmark, where he was later awarded an honorary doctorate, and has been the chief of the Division of Pain Therapy at the University of Bern, Switzerland. His research focuses on measuring nociceptive processes to understand mechanisms of human pain and predict outcomes.
About the moderator
Lars Arendt-Nielsen, Dr. Med., PhD, is founder and director, Center for Sensory-Motor Interaction (SMI) and professor, Department of Health Science and Technology, School of Medicine, Aalborg University, Denmark. Dr. Arendt-Nielsen has over 30 years of experience in the field of experimental and clinical pain research with a focus on quantitative predictive and diagnostic pain biomarkers. His publication record includes 1,016 peer-reviewed journal papers (cited 29,963 times; average citations per item, 29.78; H-index 80). Dr. Arendt-Nielsen was the president of IASP from 2018 to 2020, and is now the immediate past president.
Join the conversation about the seminar on Twitter @PainResForum #PRFSeminar
We thank the Center for Advanced Pain Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas, US, for its support of the PRF seminar series.
