The Ontogeny of Pain Behaviour: A Novel Neuroimmune Pathway.

在澳大利亚，20%的人口报告患有慢性疼痛。澳大利亚企业每年承受的痛苦成本超过30亿美元。试图解释许多慢性疼痛状态，基于目前的知识，已经失败了。这个项目的中心假设是，疼痛敏感性是由怀孕期间胎儿免疫系统的编程决定的。这项研究计划将确定在生命早期接触感染是否会决定成年后对疼痛的敏感性。在此过程中，这项研究为疼痛的个体发生提供了一个新的理论解释，并可能开始解释多种形式的慢性疼痛，这些慢性疼痛目前不仅无法从当前的疼痛理论中解释，而且难以在临床上进行管理。

In Australia, 20% of the population report suffering from chronic pain. The cost of pain to Australian business per year is over $3 billion. Attempts to explain many chronic pain states, based on current knowledge, have failed. The central hypothesis of this project is that pain sensitivity is determined by programming of the fetal immune system during pregnancy. This research proposal will determine whether exposure to infection early in life determines sensitivity to pain in adult life. In doing so, this research offers a new theoretical explanation for the ontogeny of pain and may begin to account for the many forms of chronic pain that are currently not only unexplainable from current pain theory, but difficult to manage clinically.