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Montreal Gazette, Postmedia - Researchers discover how to erase pain's 'neural trace'

Published: 15 February 2012

Remember the pain from that broken bone, that arthritic joint, that migraine that knocked you off your feet for days? Your nervous system does, too, and now researchers at McGill University say they've discovered how those neuronal memories can be erased.

The findings could offer solutions on how to ease chronic pain, a condition that one in five Canadians is living with - sometimes as a result of trauma or illness, and sometimes for no obvious reason at all. The research, published in its final form this month in the journal Molecular Pain, was led by McGill neuroscientist Terence Coderre. It offers the first pharmacological way to go after a pain-memory trace.

"It basically gives you the opportunity to target that aspect of what's underlying chronic pain," Coderre told Postmedia News Tuesday.

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