Gene-Culture Co-evolution, Cultural Evolution and Memetics

Field: Neuroscience
OC-Members:
Dr Gian Domenico Iannetti, University of Oxford
Dr Josef Priller, Charité-Universitätsmedizin, Berlin
Suggested speakers: Dr Richard G Wise, University of Cardiff (introductory speaker)
Professor Irene M Tracey, University of Oxford
Dr Walter Magerl, “Johannes Gutenberg” University, Mainz
Neural basis of pain perception
Pain is a conscious experience, an interpretation of the nociceptive input influenced by
memories, emotional, cognitive and pathological factors. The behavioural response by a
subject to a painful event is modified according to what is appropriate or possible in any
particular situation. Pain is, therefore, a subjective experience as illustrated by the definition
given by The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP): ‘‘An unpleasant sensory
and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in
terms of such damage.’’
Chronic pain (pain that persists or recurs for more than 3 months) is one of the largest medical
health problems in the developed world, affecting about 20% of the adult population,
particularly women and the elderly. Management and treatment of chronic pain is unmet,
therefore chronic pain is a global problem creating an enormous emotional and financial
burden to sufferers, carers and society in general. Innovative and frontier methods are needed
if we are to combat this massive and growing problem.
Until recently it has been difficult to obtain reliable objective information from healthy
volunteers and patients regarding their subjective experience of pain. Since the introduction of
functional neuroimaging methods, such as electroencephalography (EEG), functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) scientists have
been able to show robust and reproducible activation in response to noxious stimuli within the
human brain and spinal cord. This activation can be related to what the subject describes and
issues such as how anxiety, attention, distraction and anticipation alter pain perception better
understood. In short, scientists are trying to unravel the workings of pain perception at a
neuronal level.
The combination of functional magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalography in
particular is ideal for such investigations in humans, as their temporal and spatial resolution
enables sophisticated experimental designs to be developed that can determine the
neuroanatomical substrate for these processes. Several experiments have specifically isolated
areas of the cerebral cortex that are central to the processes involved in expecting pain, being
anxious about pain and altering your attention to pain and where relevant these aspects of the
pain experience have been related to clinical pain syndromes.
Correlating specific neurophysiological markers to the perceptual changes induced by
pharmacological agents and identifying their site of action within the human nervous system
has also been a major goal for drug discovery. Recently, pharmacological functional magnetic
resonance imaging (phMRI) and electroecephalography (phEEG) methods have been
developed and applied to the field of pain research. phMRI and phEEG are methods that

combine FMRI and EEG with drug delivery to determine the site of drug action or the
modulation by the drug on brain regions activated in response to either a sensory, motor or
cognitive input. The completely non-invasive nature of FMRI and EEG enables longitudinal
studies on healthy subjects and patients making it ideal for use in combination with
pharmacological agents that might require multiple dosing across many imaging sessions or a
serial collection of imaging data across time due to the pharmacokinetics of the drug.
A session on the neural basis of pain perception may start with a general overview on the
topic and the techniques used to investigate the problem. Dr Richard G Wise, a physicist as
background and Associate Director of the fMRI laboratory at Cardiff University would be a
perfect introductory speaker, because of his deep knowledge on the EEG and fMRI
techniques and the confounding factors arising when they are used to investigate pain and its
pharmacological modulation. The two main speakers might be Professor Irene Tracey,
Director of the Oxford Centre for the Functional Magnetic Resonance of the Brain at Oxford
University and Dr Walter Magerl, at the Institute of Physiology of the “Johannes Gutenberg”
University, Mainz. They are both excellent young speakers with an outstanding academic
track in the field of neural basis of pain perception. Professor Tracey’s lecture would cover
the exciting results obtained by using metabolic brain imaging techniques (fMRI and PET).
Dr Magerl’s lecture would provide a perfect dovetail to this, by covering the results obtained
by basic psychophysical and electrophysiological results in humans. The members of the
Organising Committee anticipate that all speakers will be able to trigger and maintain an
interesting discussion at the end of their talks.