Pain which lasts for more than 3 months is termed chronic or persistent pain. It often occurs in the absence of obvious injury. It can be very difficult to treat. The UK is home to several large databases that contain information about subjects’ life history of pain and their genetic “make-up”. We plan to use the largest of these (UK Biobank) to help identify the genes that are related to the presence of a chronic pain condition (e.g. pain of duration >3 months) and the related symptoms experienced by sufferers e.g. low mood, poor sleep, lack of motivation, (pain) anxiety or pain depression. By gaining confidence that these genetic markers are related to the presence of a chronic pain condition, we will then use this information to recruit two small (each <200) groups of ALSPAC subjects who may or may not already have a pain condition. The beauty of this approach, is that by identifying the genes that make people susceptible to developing a pain condition, we will see how this interacts with health factors e.g. weight, blood pressure, and events that shape a person’s psychology e.g. adverse life events such as bereavement, to try to provide a means for people to modify their risk, or identify people for whom early intervention might be most beneficial following an injury – to hopefully avoid them going on to suffer life-long pain.

To achieve this goal, we would ask those subjects to undergo a series of pain tests (which of themselves cause only temporary discomfort) and undergo an MRI scan of their brain and spinal cord.

To better characterise pain present in the ALSPAC cohort, we propose to add pain-specific questionnaires (and tasks) to the upcoming age 30 clinics and questionnaires, which would target all participants. These questionnaires/tasks would explore the incidence of pain in the cohort, which will provide a more complete picture than is currently available. By adding information to this time point, we will gain insight to the cohort and to which genetic and biological factors can influence the development of a chronic pain condition. The availability of this window, where the majority of the cohort are still (hopefully) pain-free, will provide a baseline from which future studies will be able to reflect on the factors that ultimately led some participants to develop a chronic pain condition.