Dr Alessio Gallina, lecturer at the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences and a core member of CPR Spine received a Royal Society International Exchanges grant to study pain, avoidance and motion. Below you can read more about Dr Gallina’s research:
Pain changes the way we move, and researchers think that these changes occur to avoid feeling pain. For this reason, we expect that if we feel pain in one specific region, for instance, the side of the knee, we will try to move in a way that protects that painful region. One way we could test this scientifically is by using an experimental pain model, which is a way to temporarily induce pain in healthy participants. In this study, we plan to test twenty healthy people comparing how they walk normally and when pain is induced in the internal, external, or anterior side of their knee. Pain will be induced by means of electrical stimulation. We will monitor the motion of their knee joint by using a system of infrared cameras coupled with small reflective markers applied on the skin. By tracking the position of the markers during gait, we will assess if and how the knee joint moves differently when walking in pain. We expect that people will walk differently when experiencing knee pain, and that their gait will adapt differently when pain is induced in the internal, anterior, or external side of the knee. This study will provide useful information on how pain changes movement, and if our brains are able to adapt movement in a way that is specific for where the pain is located in the joint. This could help us understand why and how people with knee pain in their daily life move differently.