Current Topics in Pain: 12th World Congress on Pain

This book will be ideal for anyone interested in the wide variety of topics covered, from the neurochemistry and neurobiology of pain to the role of stress in chronic pain. Several chapters reach beyond the field of pain research, such as Inge Genefke's compelling chapter on pain and suffering following torture, and Peter M. Rothwell and C. Peter N. Watson's chapter on the external validity of clinical trials.

Jose M. Castro-Lopes, MD, PhD obtained his training at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto, Portugal. He is currently full professor and chair of Histology and Embryology and coordinator of the postgraduate course on pain medicine of the same faculty. He is also coordinator of the National Program for Pain Control of the Portuguese Ministry of Health, and participated actively in the recent establishment of the Competence on Pain Medicine by the Portuguese Medical Association.

Prof. Castro-Lopes has been president of the Portuguese Association for the Study of Pain (IASP Chapter) and honorary treasurer of the European Federation of IASP Chapters (EFIC). He chaired the Scientific Program Committee of the 12th World Congress on Pain (Glasgow, 2008) and the Local Organizing Committee of Pain in Europe VI, the 6th Congress of EFIC (Lisbon, 2009). He has also served on several other committees of IASP and EFIC.

The main research field of Prof. Castro-Lopes is the neurobiology of pain, in particular the changes induced in the central nervous system by chronic pain. He has made some contributions on the plasticity of the spinal GABAergic system in experimental pain models, as well as changes in other neurotransmitter systems at the supraspinal level. He has held positions at the Max-Planck Institute for Psychiatry in Munich, at Unit 162 of INSERM in Paris, and at the School of Pharmacy in London. He has coordinated several national and European research projects and authored over 50 original or review articles, book chapters, and books.