Ji Zhang from McGill University and Francis Beaudry from Université de Montréal receive a 5-year funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to study the relationship between persistent inflammation in the process of aging and how does it impact pain behaviour in mice studies.
Project summary
A step back in time, is it possible?
Chronic pain increases with age. Unfortunately, pain is often neglected, misdiagnosed, and not adequately treated. As consequences, it severely impacts seniors’ health, daily life independence and their quality of life. While the immune system changes with age, normal aging process is accompanied by a low-grade systemic inflammation, named as inflamm-aging, which has been considered as a driver for many age-related chronic diseases. However, its role in altered pain experience in the elderly is unknown. Ji Zhang and Francis Beaudry propose longitudinal animal studies to understand whether there is a correlation between the development of inflamm-aging and altered pain behavior in mice across lifespan; and whether inflamm-aging impacts directly age related-altered pain behavior. The research team also wants to collect direct evidence from aging mice that counteracting inflamm-aging with healthy lifestyle could improve pain experience. It is expected that through the proposed study, researchers will have a better understanding of chronic pain during the aging process.
ProgresS
The preliminary data revealed that while aging mice have an altered immune profile, they also experience longer pain after surgery than young mice. Interestingly, exposing older mice to serum from young mice effectively reduces the pain behaviour after a surgery and accelerates the recovery in aging mice. More strikingly, rejuvenation not only improves aging mice pain experience, but also reduces their systemic inflammation.
Conclusion
The results from this translational (that produces more meaningful applicable results) research project will ultimately help to create customized of healthcare treatments for pain by taking age and life-experience into consideration. This research will help to identify novel therapeutic or intervention targets for pain management in aging population. It will also help provide guidance to seniors to improve their chronic pain experience and reduce associated discomfort by promoting healthy lifestyle. We want our parents and grandparents to have a better quality of life.
