A l'UM la science [S02-ep15]: From chronic pain to 3D microtomography

This week on A l'UM la science,INMresearcher Cyril Rivat helps us decipher the mechanisms of chronic pain. Our report explains how a 3D microtomograph works. Finally, Agnès Pesenti reveals the theme of the next Bar des sciences. A program broadcast on Divergence FM 93.9 every Wednesday at 6pm.

Like me, you've probably heard the expression: " What doesn't kill you makes you stronger ". Like me, you may have wondered about the validity of this expression. In the same way that a plate cracked by a shock will always be more fragile than one that hasn't, it seemed to me as I grew up that each new blow of fate, each new shock, short of making us more resistant, only reactivated old wounds, provoking not only apprehension but also a form of hypersensitivity.

What if the same were true of 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% claimed to have suffered 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 you just makes you want to die. 

For some thirty years now, public authorities have been tackling the issue of pain, setting up a legal framework to improve its management. Science has also made great strides. In 2019, researchers at the Institut des neurosciences de Montpellier highlighted the mechanisms responsible for the onset and maintenance of chronic neuropathic pain, identifying the role played by the FLT3 receptor and its partner molecule F (When pain lasts).

Going a step further, this team has this time examined the transition from acute to chronic pain, and the link between repeated exposure to pain and depressive disorder. Cyril Rivat, a researcher at the Montpellier Neuroscience Institute, is co-author of this study, published in Progress in Neurobiology last January.

In the second half of the program, we'll be going to Montpellier's Institut des sciences de l'évolution to find out how a 3D microtomograph works.

Last but not least, our last-minute guest is now a regular: Agnès Pesenti from Culture Scientifique will be presenting the next Science Bar, which will be asking the question: " Where does quantum physics hide in our everyday lives? See you on February 16 at 8.30pm at the bar Le Dôme.

At UM la science you've got the program, here we go!

Coproduction: Divergence FM / Université de Montpellier
Animation: Lucie Lecherbonnier
Interviews: Lucie Lecherbonnier / Aline Périault
Reporting and editing: Aline Périault
Production: Tom Chevalier

Listen to the program "A l'UM la science" on Divergence FM 93.9