FMUP and IBMC researchers receive the “Grünenthal Dor” Award

Every year the Grünenthal Foundation grants an award to a project of basic research focused on the study of pain. This year the recipient is the project “Congenital hypoalgesia causes a decreased anxiety and an improvement in the learning process”, authored by Clara Monteiro, Hélder Cruz, Mariana Matos, Margarida Dourado, Deolinda Lima and Vasco Galhardo, all researchers from Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade do Porto and Instituto de Biologia Molecular e Celular.

This research project aimed at assessing the behaviour of individuals with hypoalgesia using an animal model with insensibility to pain.

^{IMAGE: Clara Monteiro}

Hypoalgesia is a condition in which painful stimuli are suppressed or restrained somewhere along the path between the input and the places where they are processed and recognized as pain in the conscious mind. Exogenous chemicals, such as opioids, may cause pain insensibility, but chemicals produced in the body during episodes of fear or after exercise, for instance, may also trigger it. Hypoalgesia is linked to some diseases as well, such as congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis.

According to Clara Monteiro “this research showed that a life with a low level of pain could lead to beneficial behavioural effects”. “In the future, this study may contribute to better understand the effects of painful conditions over the brain’s functional balance”, she adds.