"Somehow scientists still pursue the same questions, if now on higher levels of theoretical abstraction rooted in deeper layers of empirical evidence… To paraphrase an old philosophy joke, science is more like it is today than it has ever been. In other words, science remains as challenging as ever to human inquiry. And the need to communicate its progress… remains as essential now as then." - Tom Siegfried, Science News 2021In fact, essential questions about pain have not changed since IASP's creation in Issaquah: what causes it and how can we treat it? Are we any closer to answering these questions, or have we just widened the gap between bench and bedside? The technology used to answer questions about pain mechanisms has certainly changed, whether the focus is on sensory neurons, spinal cord circuitry, descending controls or cortical pain processing. In this paper, we will describe how transgenics, transcriptomics, optogenetics, calcium imaging, fMRI, neuroimmunology and in silico drug development have transformed the way we examine the complexity of pain processing. But does it all, as our founders hoped, help people with pain? Are voltage-gated Na channels the new holy grail for analgesic development, is there a pain biomarker, can we completely replace opioids, will proteomic analyses identify novel targets, is there a "pain matrix," and can it be targeted? Do the answers lie in our tangible discoveries, or in the seemingly intangible? Our founders could barely imagine what we know now, yet their questions remain.

中文翻译：

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这一切都始于50年前的Issaquah。


“不知何故，科学家们仍然在追求同样的问题，如果现在是植根于更深层次的经验证据的更高层次的理论抽象上......套用一个古老的哲学笑话，科学比以往任何时候都更像今天的科学。换句话说，科学对人类的探究仍然一如既往地具有挑战性。以及传达其进展的需要......现在和当时一样重要。- Tom Siegfried，2021年科学新闻事实上，自从IASP在Issaquah成立以来，关于疼痛的基本问题并没有改变：是什么导致了疼痛，我们该如何治疗它？我们是否更接近于回答这些问题，或者我们只是扩大了 Bench 和 Bedside 之间的差距？用于回答有关疼痛机制问题的技术肯定已经发生了变化，无论重点是感觉神经元、脊髓回路、下降控制还是皮质疼痛处理。在本文中，我们将描述转基因学、转录组学、光遗传学、钙成像、fMRI、神经免疫学和计算机药物开发如何改变我们研究疼痛处理复杂性的方式。但是，正如我们的创始人所希望的那样，这一切是否能帮助到有痛苦的人呢？电压门控 Na 通道是镇痛药开发的新圣杯吗，是否有疼痛生物标志物，我们能否完全替代阿片类药物，蛋白质组学分析能否识别新靶点，是否有“疼痛矩阵”，是否可以靶向？答案在于我们有形的发现，还是看似无形的发现？我们的创始人几乎无法想象我们现在所知道的，但他们的问题仍然存在。