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Neuroimmune modulation of pain and regenerative pain medicine

Thomas Buchheit1,2, Yul Huh1,3, William Maixner1

  • 1Center for Translational Pain Medicine, Department of Anesthesiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, USA.

The Journal of Clinical Investigation
|April 7, 2020
PubMed

Regenerative pain medicine, which seeks to harness the body's own reparative capacity, is rapidly emerging as a field within pain medicine and orthopedics. It is increasingly appreciated that common analgesic mechanisms for these treatments depend on neuroimmune modulation. In this Review, we discuss recent progress in mechanistic understanding of nociceptive sensitization in chronic pain with a focus on neuroimmune modulation. We also examine the spectrum of regenerative outcomes, including preclinical and clinical outcomes. We further distinguish the analgesic mechanisms of regenerative therapies from those of cellular replacement, creating a conceptual and mechanistic framework to evaluate future research on regenerative medicine.

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