The 145th Annual Meeting of the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan (Fukuoka)

Organizer: Norimitsu Morioka (Grad. Sch. Biomed. Health Sci., Hiroshima Univ.), Shogo Tokuyama (Sch. Pharmaceu. Sci., Kobe Gakuin Univ.)

Recent studies have shown that the prolonged pain is associated not only with abnormalities in the sensory system such as perception of pain in the peripheral and central nervous system and its conduction and transmission, but also with abnormalities in emotional and cognitive functions induced by aversion to pain. In particular, frequently used analgesics such as opioids, gabapentinoids and duloxetine not only suppress the sensory system but also affect emotional and cognitive functions, suggesting that prolonged pain is controlled by a multidimensional neurobiological system. However, many existing mechanisms of pathogenesis and therapeutic targets for chronic pain are still based mainly on findings related to the sensory system, and the influence of emotional and cognitive dysfunctions on prolonged pain is not well understood. In this symposium, we would like to share the latest findings on the establishment of treatment strategies based on new insights by presenting four researchers who are approaching the mechanism of prolonged pain from the perspective of emotional and cognitive dysfunctions in addition to the sensory system.