The Centre for Pain Research at NUIG had a clean sweep of awards at the annual meeting of the Irish Pain Society, winning prizes in every category.
Researchers from the Centre for Pain Research won five awards in competitions judged by a panel of international experts who commended the high quality of their work.
Orla Mannion won Best Presentation at the Irish Pain Research Network short oral data blitz in work supervised by Professor David Finn and Professor Brian McGuire.
Her presentation showed that drugs which boost levels of the body’s own marijuana-like cannabinoids have the potential to be used as a treatment following groin hernia repair.
Rachel Humphrey won the Society’s Preclinical Research Medal for her poster showing that changes in how the brain processes pain could be a feature of being on the autism spectrum.
Her work also identified the regions of the brain which may be implicated in this process, and was supervised by Dr Michelle Roche and Professor David Finn.
Mehnaz Ferdousi won second prize in the preclinical poster category for her research on the effects of novel opioid drugs on pain, anxiety and depression related behaviour.
Her work was supervised by Professor David Finn, Dr Michelle Roche and Professor John Kelly.
Monika Pilch won the Clinical Research Medal for her poster showing how perspective taking influences what we pay attention to when evaluating facial expressions of pain.
Her work was carried out with Dr Denis O’Hora and Professor Brian McGuire.
And the final award won by the Centre for Pain Research was second prize in the clinical poster category won by Nessa Sweeney.
Her work, supervised by Dr Caroline Heary and Professor Brian McGuire, was on  examining the experience of young Irish mentors supporting adolescents with juvenile idiopathic arthritis.
The two Directors of the Centre at NUIG, Professors Briain McGuire and David Finn, also took part in the 2019 Annual Scientific Meeting of the Society, delivering keynote addresses to an audience of scientists and healthcare practitioners from around the world.
Marking the Global Year against Pain in the Most Vulnerable, the meeting heard about challenges and opportunities in identifying and treating pain, and new and innovative approaches in research and clinical practice.
