Center for Sensory-Motor Interaction

The pain research as Aalborg University was established in 1985 by Professor Lars Arendt-Nielsen. Today the pain research center is among the most productive centers in the field of translational experimental and clinical pain research. The focus is on provoking and assessing pain. The developments are in the area of human mechanistic pain biomarkers (including quantitative sensory testing and experimental pain models) for profiling pain patients and new pain compounds. The center offers a unique combination of technology, pharmacology, and medicine with the aim of developing and profiling new therapeutic approaches. The human healthy volunteer basic pain research projects often involves experimental sensitization models applied to the skin, muscles, and viscera.

Clinical studies on acute pain, inflammatory pain, neuropathic pain, musculoskeletal pain, visceral pain, dysfunctional pain syndromes have been conducted. Research is currently focusing on fundamental healthy volunteer studies and on musculoskeletal pain, particularly osteoarthrosis.

A network of collaborations with 40+ international pharmaceutical industries have been established.

The center has over the years collaborated with more than 30 national and international pharmaceutical companies.  SMI receives external funding from national research and research training programs, private foundations, international programs (EU and NIH), and collaborations with industry. Overall, the center has over the years published more than 900 scientific publications in the area of pain where 50% is in cooperation with international partners.

The center has approximately 1.500 m2 of offices, 23 fully equipped laboratories with a total area of ​​650 m2. Approximately 50% of the approximately 80 researchers are coming from research institutions, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies in14 different countries. Has extensive experience in clinical trials in the area of pain.