Call for applications
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Deadline for applications has been postponed to 27 February 2012.

Mission

The EPS 2012 will have its focus on the evolution of modern scientific pain concepts as came to pass during the past 40 years. Prior to that, views on pain had existed in the fields of anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, psychology and medicine. But these tended to be non-comprehensive and specific to each discipline. The need for im-proved pain treatments as a sequel of wars in the 20th century raised awareness of the need for pain research and triggered a huge expansion especially since about 1980. In consequence, pain concepts became much enriched and integrated, with rapidly ex-panding research in neurophysiology, genetics, molecular biology, cell biology, immu-nology, brain imaging, psychology and sociology, with a tremendous cross-fertilization of ideas. At the same time pain began to be recognized as a major medical challenge and this resulted in an impetus in advancing interdisciplinary clinical programmes for the care of pain patients. More effective translation from science to medicine remains a challenge. The EPS 2012 is aimed at considering the sources and validity of the ideas which transformed Pain into a coherent field of science and medicine based firmly on biomedical and psychosocial roots, and which is beginning to be acknowledged as an academic subject worldwide.

Scholars

Young scientists at the Ph.D. or postdoctoral levels in all fields of pain science and pain medicine are encouraged to apply.

Topics

1. Views into the brain: a pain matrix?
2. Genetic and non-genetic sources of pain variability
3. Glia-neuron interactions and neuro-immune mechanisms in pain
4. Sex hormones and pain sensitivity
5. Situational, cognitive and emotional control of pain
6. Placebo and verum analgesia - a useful combination to enhance therapeutic outcome?
7. Opioids and cannabinoids: links between the control of pain and mood enhancement
8. "Catastrophizing": thoughts that amplify pain
9. Phantom pain, pain memory and mirror therapy
10. Ontogeny of the pain system; is there “fetal programming”?
11. Plasticity in the control of ionic channels and inhibitory synaptic networks
12. Transporter molecules in the neuropsychiatry of pain
13. Pain and consciousness

Faculty

Anna Maria Aloisi, Siena, Italy
Ulrike Bingel, Hamburg, Germany
Giancarlo Carli, Siena, Italy
Fernando Cervero, Montreal, Canada
Marshall Devor, Jerusalem, Israel
Rohini Kuner, Heidelberg, Germany
John Loeser, Seattle, USA
Steve McMahon,London, United Kingdom
Mihai Moldovan, Copenhagen, Denmark
Ze’ev Seltzer, Toronto, Canada
Jordi Serra, Barcelona, Spain
Mila Vlaskovska, Sofia, Bulgaria
Manfred Zimmermann, Heidelberg, Germany

Contact

Anna Maria Aloisi MD, Ph.D.
Pain and Stress Neurophysiology Lab.
Dept of Physiology, University of Siena
Via Aldo Moro, 2
53100 Siena - Italy
EPS.2012@EuropeanPainSchool.eu