At UM la science [S02-ep15]: From chronic pain to the 3D microtomograph
This week in A l'UM la science, Cyril Rivat, researcher at the INM, deciphers with us the mechanisms of chronic pain. Our report shows you how a 3D microtomograph works. Finally, Agnès Pesenti reveals the theme of the next Science Bar. A program broadcast on Divergence FM 93.9 every Wednesday at 6 p.m.
Like me, you have probably heard the expression: "What does not kill us makes us stronger". Like me, you may have already wondered about the validity of this expression. Indeed, in the same way that a plate cracked following a shock will always remain more fragile than a plate that would not have suffered a shock, it seemed to me as I grew up that each new blow of fate, each new shock, if not making us more resistant, only reactivated old wounds causing not only apprehension but also a form of hypersensitivity.
What if it were the same for pain? What if exposure to repeated pain, instead of making us insensitive to it, only made us more sensitive to it? In 2014, a vast survey announced the figure of 20 million French people affected by so-called chronic pain. Of these 20 million, 40% said they had experienced direct repercussions at work and 28% said that the pain was sometimes so severe that it caused them to have morbid or suicidal thoughts.
Proof that sometimes what doesn't kill us, just makes us want to die.
For about thirty years now, the public authorities have taken up the issue of pain by putting in place a legal framework to improve its management. Science has also advanced a lot. In 2019, researchers at the Institute of Neuroscience in Montpellier highlighted the mechanisms responsible for the onset and maintenance of chronic neuropathic pain by identifying the role played by the FLT3 receptor and its partner, the F molecule (When pain lasts).
To go further, this time this team looked at the transition from acute pain to chronic pain and the link between repeated exposure to pain and depressive disorder. Cyril Rivat is a researcher at the Institute of Neuroscience in Montpellier, he co-authored this study published in Progress in neurobiology last January.
Read the study: "Activation of neuronal FLT3 promotes exaggerated sensory and emotional pain-related behaviors facilitating the transition from acute to chronic pain"
In the second part of the program, we will go to the Institute of Evolutionary Sciences in Montpellier to discover how a 3D microtomograph works.
Finally, our last-minute guest is now a regular, Agnès Pesenti from scientific culture comes to present us the next science bar which will ask the question: "Where is quantum physics hidden in our daily lives?" See you on February 16 at 8:30 p.m. at the bar Le Dôme.
At UM la science you've got the program, here we go!
Coproduction: Divergence FM / University of Montpellier
Host: Lucie Lecherbonnier
Interview : Lucie Lecherbonnier / Aline Périault
Report and editing: Aline Périault
Directed by: Tom Chevalier
Listen to the program "A l'UM la science" on Divergence FM 93.9
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