The World Health Organisation’s Global Burden of Disease study puts chronic painful conditions, like lower back pain and headache disorders, among the 5 most challenging health problems worldwide.
Traditional painkillers offer inadequate relief and can have significant side effects. This has also contributed to the opioid crisis affecting about 1.7 million Americans. In the UK, the estimated number of opioid related deaths from 2011 to 2022 is over 39k.
Substance use adds further to the global health burden; in the UK, smoking, alcohol, and illicit drug use account for 25% of deaths and 13% of years lived with disability.
Pain and addictions are influenced by a myriad of factors. They both require an integrated approach that considers the use of drugs, behavioural treatments, alongside work to provide an evidence base to policymakers to ensure that these treatments reach the people who need them.
In our theme we have combined expertise from different disciplines and specialities to enable an integrated mind-body approach to lessening the negative impacts in pain and addictions.
Our experimental medicine research has led to new classes of drugs which are now licenced for the prevention and treatment of migraine and cluster headache and can be used at scale.
Our work in substance use has led to the development of approaches such as Take Home Naloxone which provides an antidote for opioid overdose to people in the community.
We continue to refine our understanding of these conditions and explore new treatment options informed by contemporary measures of behaviour and neuroimaging of pain, mood and sleep circuits.
Through our experimental approaches we are studying opioid overdose in the laboratory and extending this work to the development and testing of wearable overdose sensors and possible novel antidote formulations.
At the heart of our work is the improvement of our understanding of the mechanisms to underpin treatments to optimise their delivery.
