MUSC neuroscientist honored for trailblazing pain management research

MUSC neuroscientist Bashar Badran, Ph.D., was one of only 10 investigators nationwide recognized for their research at the fifth annual scientific meeting of the National Institutes of Health – Helping to End Addiction Long-Term (NIH HEAL) Initiative in Bethesda, Maryland. Badran received an honorable mention for the NIH HEAL Initiative Trailblazer Award.

The NIH HEAL Initiative provides funding to encourage scientific research into opioid use and pain management to fast-track progress in the face of the country’s current opioid epidemic. Its Trailblazer Award recognizes HEAL grant-funded researchers who adopt an innovative approach or otherwise show creativity in their research into opioid use or pain management.

“It's an honor to get national recognition for work that we've been engaged in for over 10 years now at MUSC,” said Badran. “And it validates the work not only that I’m doing but that my team is doing.”

Badran is an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry & and Behavioral Sciences at MUSC and leads the Neuro-X Lab, which leverages neurotechnology to address complex medical and neuropsychiatric disorders.

Badran’s current project focuses on a type of wearable technology that works to alleviate pain by directly stimulating nerves in the ear with electricity. This technology, called transcutaneous auricular neurostimulation (tAN), is a noninvasive, drug-free way of stimulating the body’s vagus and trigeminal nerves.

The vagus nerve plays an important role in pain perception by transmitting signals between the pain centers of our brain and other parts of our body. The flow of these signals can be changed by stimulating this nerve, reducing the amount of pain that people experience.

Badran and his team are currently studying how tAN works to reduce patient pain levels. To do this, they are looking at how blood flow through the brain changes in real-time during tAN using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI. In doing so, they can see how activity in specific brain regions, such as the pain centers, is being affected by stimulation.

 

“These studies are the largest concurrent stimulation/ fMRI studies that have ever been done,” said Badran. “And they’re the only ones of their kind that attempt to understand the underlying mechanism of stimulation.”

Badran also suspects that stimulation of the vagus nerve may release endorphins, a type of opioid naturally produced in the brain, into the bloodstream, explaining the pain-relieving effects of tAN. To test this, he is running another study focused on blocking the effects of endorphins to see if tAN can still provide pain relief in their absence.  

“Prior to 2013, the only way to activate the vagus nerve was to do a surgery to implant a nerve stimulator. So, we ran different parameter, imaging and behavioral trials of a potential alternative approach, all of which suggested that we can deliver stimulation to this nerve noninvasively."

-- Dr. Bashar Badran

Badran has been working on noninvasive vagus nerve stimulation, which he initially thought of as a “moonshot,” for over a decade.

“Prior to 2013, the only way to activate the vagus nerve was to do a surgery to implant a nerve stimulator,” said Badran. “So, we ran different parameter, imaging and behavioral trials of a potential alternative approach, all of which suggested that we can deliver stimulation to this nerve noninvasively.”

This research has far-reaching implications: It could lead to a fundamental change in the way we understand and treat pain disorders.

If doctors could prescribe to patients suffering from chronic pain a noninvasive, wearable device, rather than opioids, Badran thinks that it could reduce the number of new opioid users each year.

This revolutionary technology could be an important tool in combating the opioid epidemic gripping our nation by providing a safer, nonaddictive treatment for the 51 million Americans who struggle with chronic pain each year.

Although there is still a long way to go before that happens, Badran is hopeful for the future.

 “I wish I could fast-forward to know the answers, but right now we’re just doing the science, and the next steps would be to move this forward as a potential treatment for chronic pain,” he said.