Mechanisms of Chronic Pain and Fatigue Study

This exciting multidisciplinary Brighton and Sussex Medical School study seeks to understand the biological mechanisms and brain-body interactions contributing to chronic pain and fatigue in Fibromyalgia and ME/CFS. It has received financial support from Versus Arthritis, Action For ME and the Fibroduck Foundation. We believe that this project has the power to transform current thinking about Fibromyalgia and ME/CFS and will hopefully provide possible treatment targets for personalised medicine in the future.

Dr Eccles (NIHR Clinical Lecturer) is working with Prof Davies, Prof Harrison, Prof Cercignani, Prof Critchley and Dr Tarzi to explore brain-body interactions in Fibromyalgia and ME/CFS. This involves autonomics, inflammatory and cytokine markers, brain imaging and genomics. Dr Themelis is a post-doctoral research fellow with expertise in chronic pain funded by Versus Arthritis working on the project alongside Marisa Amato, whose PhD studentship is funded jointly by Action for Me and Brighton and Sussex Medical School. We have been assisted by Robyn Stocks, Patrick Tano and Rikki Winchester, BSMS medical undergraduates. We are grateful for the support of the Clinical Investigations Research Unit at BSUH NHS Trust and the Clinical Imaging Sciences Centre at BSMS and all of the participants who have taken part so far.

This research was recently discussed in an article in The Conversation. Watch Dr Eccles' video about this exciting research on YouTube. Preliminary findings are available at: https://ard.bmj.com/content/78/Suppl_2/1920.1

Interested in taking part as a healthy volunteer? Please email PainandFatigueStudy@bsms.ac.uk