Research projects

Fibromyalgia is an emerging disease in the human population that mainly affects women and has a high prevalence in developed societies. Symptoms include chronic pain, sleep deficiencies, fatigue and other alterations. As the causation of the disease is unknown, it would be of medical and social interest to study its causes in order to improve its treatment and prevention. Family groups of patients with fibromyalgia are known to appear frequently; that is, there seems to be a genetic component associated with this syndrome. The aim of this project is to study the neurobiological foundations of this chronic pain. Subsequently, once the affected pain pathways are identified, we can study the polymorphisms of the genes involved in those pathways, or other mutations, which could be linked etiologically to the disease or represent its predisposition factors. For this purpose, two research groups are participating in this project: one directed by Professor J. Sánchez Prieto and another by the Lead Researcher of this project. The Madrid group will study the affected pain pathways. The Zaragoza group will study the candidate genes that could be related to the disease or those resulting from the neurobiologic study. For this purpose, a fibromyalgia patient DNA bank will be used, available at the DNA National Bank and provided by different hospitals in Zaragoza, Barcelona and Madrid.