Meeting/Workshop
Sex differences in pain experience and management
October 24, 2022
Strasbourg (France)
INTRODUCTION
In neuroscience, sex-based differences impact all systems and subsequently affect a majority of health conditions, resulting in differences between men and women in disease risk factors, prevalence, clinical picture, and response to treatment.
The nociception-pain field particularly illustrates those sex-based differences. Chronic pain is common worldwide and the lack of effective treatments confers a tremendous burden on individuals and on the overall healthcare systems and society. Although opiates, such as morphine and its derivatives, remain the most potent painkillers available at the hospital, their use and efficiency are limited by mild (i.e., nausea, constipation) to severe side effects, including analgesic tolerance, opioid use disorders and ultimately respiratory depression, which can lead to death.
Over the past thirty years, clinical studies have shown that women report more severe pain at more locations than do men but also indicated a higher prevalence of pain treatment failures in women. These results correlate with data from pre-clinical studies indicating sex differences in the analgesic effect of morphine with a higher efficacy in males. Since then, the involvement of sex hormones, mu opioid receptor signalling, glial cells and metabolism as potential actors of these sex differences have been enlighten.
During this symposium, results obtained on sex-difference studies in the nociception-pain field at the pre-clinical and clinical levels will be presented. The meeting will be the occasion to foster the inclusion of females/women in (pre-)clinical studies in substantial numbers, a paramount prerequisite to moving forward the entire discipline and reducing the clinical and socioeconomic impact of chronic pain.
A Neurex workshop organised by Volodya HOVHANNISYAN with the support of Euridol, ITI-Neurostra, HaPpY & USIAS.