Wenn es weh tut - Ein Abend mit dem Schmerzforscher Tim Hucho

Who isn’t familiar with pain? It is the most universal of all human experiences—and at the same time one of the most mysterious. Why do some people feel hardly anything after an injury, while others are plagued by chronic pain without any clear physical cause? And why does treatment so often lag behind the suffering?

A quiet but fundamental shift is currently taking place in pain research. Decades-old certainties are being reevaluated. Our understanding of what pain actually is—and how it arises, becomes entrenched, or disappears again—has changed profoundly in recent years. The implications for treatment could be enormous.

Which research findings are making their way into clinical practice?

But it’s a long road from the lab to clinical practice. Many of the promising new approaches have not yet reached treatment rooms. Where is the bottleneck? And what can those affected already take away for themselves from scientific progress today?

This evening, we’ll be speaking with the biochemist, pain researcher, and head of the Department of Translational Pain Research at the University Hospital of Cologne about new scientific findings, about why pain is so much more complex and far more fascinating than we long thought, and whether new insights into pain mechanisms could also open up new possibilities for managing pain.

An evening for anyone who wants to learn more about why it sometimes hurts and how diverse the options are for managing that suffering. Personal questions from the audience are expressly encouraged. The event will be moderated by Claudia Lehnen, chief reporter at the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger.