TOBeATPAIN (Targeting neuroinflammation to combat pathological pain in neurodegenerative diseases and chronic pain syndromes) is funded by the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Union. The project is coordinated by the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, at King’s College London (KCL), started in August 2018 and is funded for 4 years.
The TOBeATPAIN research training programme is based on state-of-the-art lab-based Network-wide and local training activities, including secondments and scientific visits and specialised complementary skills focused on entrepreneurship and societal engagement.
Do mechanisms of neuroinflammation offer innovative targets for pathological pain therapy?
Several questions stem from this main question and they are as follows:
- Are there common mechanisms at work during neurodegenerative diseases and chronic pain?
- Do changes in the CNS pain areas, which are triggered by inflammatory processes in arthritis, facilitate the generation of pathological pain in neurodegenerative diseases?
- How do (micro)glial activation states in neurodegeneration compare to glial reactive reaction in chronic pain states?
- Is there a difference due to the fact that in neurodegeneration the brain is the main site of neuroinflammation whilst in chronic pain the PNS and spinal cord are the major sites?
