Mechanisms and Models of Musculoskeletal Pain and Nonpharmacological Treatment Volume II

This Research Topic is part of the “Mechanisms and Models of Musculoskeletal Pain and Nonpharmacological Treatment” series. 

Musculoskeletal pain, and more specifically low back pain is a leading and global cause of pain and disability. Nonpharmacological treatments are commonly used to treat acute and chronic musculoskeletal pain conditions, however often with limited therapeutic success. Lack of treatment optimization is due in large part to a lack of mechanistic-related knowledge and clinically relevant preclinical musculoskeletal pain models. A greater emphasis on understanding physiological mechanisms underlying the development, acute to chronic transition, and resolution of musculoskeletal pain is needed, as well as the elucidation of the physiological mechanisms related to the nonpharmacological treatment for musculoskeletal pain conditions.

Clinical use of nonpharmacological treatment of musculoskeletal pain is rapidly increasing, but a lack of mechanistic-related knowledge, relevant preclinical pain models, and optimization of treatment delivery hampers wider clinical use and identification of specific subpopulations mostly likely to benefit from these interventions. For common musculoskeletal pain conditions such as low back pain, several different etiologies and/or pain generators are known to contribute adding to the complexity of the clinical presentation and decreased clinically successful outcomes. A recent scoping review and a comprehensive model related to nonpharmacological approaches to musculoskeletal pain noted a severe lack of mechanistic-oriented literature which needs to be adequately addressed.

In this Research Topic, we would like bring together preclinical and clinical expertise to highlight the need for the development of more clinically relevant musculoskeletal preclinical pain models to study physiological mechanisms related to the development, acute to chronic pain transition, and resolution of musculoskeletal pain as well as to investigate physiological mechanisms related to nonpharmacological treatment of musculoskeletal pain (i.e. manual therapy, exercise, botanicals active compounds, yoga, etc.).

Manuscripts describing Original Research, Methods, models, Theory and Reviews are welcome.