IASP Pain Research Forum Podcasts

Dr. Rachel Zoffness is a Pain Clinician and Educator who has lectured at Stanford and UCSF and has been featured on the Hidden Brain and Armchair Expert Podcasts.  She was on the Board of Directors of the USASP and lives in San Francisco.   On this episode of PRF Spotlight Interviews, Dr. Wendy Gaultney, Pain Clinician and Eductor and member of the PRF Editorial Board interviews Dr. Zoffness about the biopsychosocial framework for pain research and treatment and the successes she has had incorporating a more "Whole Person" treatment plan.  Tune in to learn more about the biopsychosocial model of pain.

Spotlight episode is Part 2 of Sodium Channels and the Making of a Field featuring Dr. Stephen Waxman Bridget Flaherty Professor of Neurology, Neuroscience and Pharmacology at Yale University. Dr. Waxman trained with J.Z. Young and Patrick Wall at University College London. He founded Yale's Neuroscience & Regeneration Research Center and has been its director since 1988.  Prior to Yale, he held faculty positions at Harvard, MIT, and Stanford.  Dr. Waxman has been a pioneer in unraveling the roles of sodium channels in pain signaling, as his early papers defined the ion channel architecture of nerve fibers, and demonstrated its importance for axonal conduction. Ultimately, his work has led to the development of new therapies that restore function after nervous system injury. He is now pinpointing "pain resilience" genes, and new non-addictive pain medications, based largely on his work, are in or headed toward clinical trials, and the first has achieved FDA approval. He has served on multiple editorial boards, led an international team that identified ion channel mutations as causes of pain in peripheral neuropathy, received multiple honors, and trained many lead researchers throughout the world.   The PRF Spotlight Episode 2 was produce and moderated by Drs. Isaac Gomes-Aragao DDS, MSC, PhD and Beatriz Lima Adjafre, PhD  Music by Kevin Seal of Seal Party

The first interview in the PRF Spotlight Series: Voices Shaping Pain Science features Dr. Michael Gold, PhD delving deep in to discussion of the history and future of sodium channels. From the identification of sodium channels as drivers of nociceptor excitability to the emergence of NaVs as therapeutic targets, this conversation bridges the history of pain research with the future of mechanism-based analgesia. Part 1 of our interviews on Sodium Channels and the Making of a Field.   Michael Gold, PhD University of Pittsburgh   Francisco Isaac  Gomes-Aragão, DDS, MSC, PhD University of São Paulo, BR   Beatriz Lima Adjafre, PhD University of São Paulo, Br   Music by Seal Party.   

During the 2024 North American Pain School (NAPS), five pain researchers participated in the PRF-NAPS 2024 Correspondents Program.  In this episode of the IASP-PRF Podcast, PRF correspondent Rima El-Sayed spoke with scientist and patient partner Alice Wagenaar-Tison, PhD candidate at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières.  During their wide-ranging conversation, Wagenaar detailed her experience with chronic pain, gave advice to any chronic pain patients interested in becoming a patient partner, and how you do not need to be a scientist to help design studies with patients in mind.   Podcast participants include: Alice Wagenaar-Tison, University of Québec at Trois-Rivières, Canada Rima El-Sayed, University of Toronto, Canada

Editor's note: This article is part of PRF's featured content series "Investigating Virtual Reality for Pain Management: Past, Present, and Future," which has been made possible thanks to a generous grant from the MAYDAY Fund.  Over the past two decades, the technology supporting virtual reality (VR) has significantly advanced, and its utility in healthcare settings has advanced along with it. In January 2020, Deirdre Logan and 15 other academics and clinicians, as well as industry and philanthropy partners, formed the  Interdisciplinary Network on Virtual and Augmented Technologies for Pain Management (INOVATE) consortium. This group aims to advance the field of VR for pediatric chronic pain rehabilitation. During this episode of the Pain Research Forum Podcast, IASP's Publications Manager, Renee Chasse, speaks with Dr. Deirdre Logan and fellow INOVATE member Dr. Sara Williams about their background working together in pediatric pain research, their experience with the consortium over the past 5 years, and how they envision the future of the field specific to therapeutic advances made possible by Extended Reality (XR).   Podcast participants include: Deirdre Logan, PhD, Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA Sara Williams, PhD, Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, California, USA Renee Chasse, PhD, International Association for the Study of Pain (host)