Causalgia is a pain syndrome that occasionally develops after traumatic nerve injury and is characterized by spontaneous burning pain accompanied by hypersensitivity to painful stimuli (hyperalgesia) and pain elicited by nonpainful stimuli (allodynia). Although the pathophysiology of causalgia is not known, sympathectomy has been practiced for decades as one of the most effective treatments for relieving pain in causalgia patients. The focus of Dr. Kyungsoon Chung’s laboratory is to illuminate the mechanisms of causalgia, especially the involvement of the sympathetic nervous system in the generation of pain utilizing an animal model of peripheral neuropathy. Recently Dr. Chung’s laboratory demonstrated abnormal sympathetic sprouting in the sensory ganglia following peripheral nerve injury and proposed that this sympathetic sprouting may be one of the causes of sympathetically maintained pain. Her laboratory’s current study focuses on the possible mechanisms of abnormal sensory-sympathetic interactions in the sensory ganglion using anatomical, behavioral, pharmacological, electrophysiological, and molecular techniques as research tools. Better understanding of the mechanisms of neuropathic pain will lead them toward the development of better methods of treatment for causalgia patients.

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This page last edited on: September 1, 2005.