# Personalized Perioperative Medicine: Translational Studies in the Prevention of Postoperative Pain and Opioid Misuse

> **NIH NIH R35** · BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL · 2021 · $11,481

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
 Surgery is an increasingly common event, impacting over 230 million people annually. Post-surgical
pain is variable in severity and duration, but a significant minority (20-30%) of patients experience surgical site
pain lasting a year or longer. Such persistent postsurgical pain causes physical and mental suffering and
disability, and long exposure to postoperative opioids also puts patients at risk of misuse and addiction.
Despite excellent preclinical research into the molecular events involved in the transition of acute to chronic
pain after injury, little success at translating these findings to actual prevention of persistent postoperative pain
in human patients has been realized. Our research program has focused on building a working human model
of this transition, by systematic and longitudinal study of pain before, during and after a variety of surgeries.
Importantly, we have focused our efforts to identify risk factors to predict those who will actually develop
chronic postsurgical pain, rather than those who won’t (70-80%), to make study of this problem more efficient.
 An important factor in determining the trajectory of post-surgical pain appears to be the capacity for
amplification in the circuitry of the pain system, whereby incoming painful input may be increased to the point
of intense discomfort. In our psychophysics lab, we study measures that indicate an excessive (temporal
summation of pain, TSP) or prolonged response (painful after sensations, PAS) amplification response of the
nervous system in response to standardized pain stimuli. Amplification can also occur at a psychosocial level,
where stress, sleep disruption, and catastrophizing increases pain perception. These factors are much more
prominent in some individuals, and account for a sizeable amount of the variation in postsurgical pain severity.
We have adapted these tests to easily and non-invasively test this “amplification phenotype” in individuals
BEFORE they have surgery, using modified bedside quantitative sensory tests and validated questionnaires.
 We propose to use these measures of preoperative amplification phenotype, in order to help target
both known and novel non-opioid preventive treatments to those individuals who need them most. The
research team is led by an anesthesiologist with formal training in pain neuroscience and includes a PhD
Psychologist coinvestigator. We have a strong track record of successfully launching postdoctoral fellows into
their own independent research careers. Inclusion of Mr. Overstreet on our team will allow him needed
training, mentorship, exposure to a new research area, and opportunities for publication. Together the team will
have a more diverse approach to understanding the development of persistent pain using this human
translational pain model: 1) to speed testing of pain preventive therapies, 2) to develop strategies to reduce
pain and opioid use after surgery in high risk individuals, and 3) to forward perso...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10362272
- **Project number:** 3R35GM128691-03S1
- **Recipient organization:** BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL
- **Principal Investigator:** KRISTIN SCHREIBER
- **Activity code:** R35 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $11,481
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2018-09-01 → 2023-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10362272

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10362272, Personalized Perioperative Medicine: Translational Studies in the Prevention of Postoperative Pain and Opioid Misuse (3R35GM128691-03S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10362272. Licensed CC0.

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