PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Brain training game offers new hope for drug-free pain management

2025-06-02
(Press-News.org) A trial of an interactive game that trains people to alter their brain waves has shown promise as a treatment for nerve pain – offering hope for a new generation of drug-free treatments.

The PainWaive technology, developed by UNSW Sydney researchers, teaches users how to regulate abnormal brain activity linked to chronic nerve pain, offering a potential in-home, non-invasive alternative to opioids.

A recent trial of the technology, led by Professor Sylvia Gustin and Dr Negin Hesam-Shariati from UNSW Sydney’s NeuroRecovery Research Hub, has delivered promising results, published in the Journal of Pain.

The study compared hundreds of measures across participants' pain and related issues like pain interference before, during and after four weeks of interactive game play. Their brain activity was tracked via EEG (electroencephalogram) headsets, with the app responding in real time to shifts in brainwave patterns.

Three out of the four participants showed significant reductions in pain, particularly nearing the end of the treatment. Overall, the pain relief achieved by the three was comparable to or greater than that offered by opioids.

“Restrictions in the study’s size, design and duration limit our ability to generalise the findings or rule out placebo effects,” Dr Hesam-Shariati says.

“But the results we’ve seen are exciting and give us confidence to move to the next stage and our larger trial."

The PainWaive project builds on UNSW Professor Sylvia Gustin’s seminal research into changes in the brain’s thalamus – a central relay hub in the brain – associated with nerve (neuropathic) pain.

“The brainwaves of people with neuropathic pain show a distinct pattern: more slow theta waves, fewer alpha waves, and more fast, high beta waves,” Prof. Gustin says.

“We believe these changes interfere with how the thalamus talks to other parts of the brain, especially the sensory motor cortex, which registers pain."

“I wondered, can we develop a treatment that directly targets and normalises these abnormal waves?"

The challenge was taken up by an interdisciplinary team at UNSW Science and Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA), led by Prof. Gustin and Dr Hesam-Shariati, and resulted in PainWaive.

The four participants in its first trial received a kit with a headset and a tablet preloaded with the game app, which includes directions for its use. They were also given tips for different mental strategies, like relaxing or focusing on happy memories, to help bring their brain activity into a more “normal” state.

The user data, meanwhile, was uploaded to the research team for remote monitoring.

“After just a couple of Zoom sessions, participants were able to run the treatment entirely on their own,” says Dr Hesam-Shariati.

“Participants felt empowered to manage their pain in their own environment. That’s a huge part of what makes this special."

Initially, Dr Hesam-Shariati says, the team planned to use existing commercial EEG systems, but they were either too expensive or didn’t meet the quality needed to deliver the project. Instead, they developed their own.

“Everything except the open-source EEG board was built in-house,” says Dr Hesam-Shariati. “And soon, even that will be replaced by a custom-designed board.”

Thanks to 3D printing, Prof. Gustin says, the team has cut the cost of each headset to around $300 – a fraction of the $1,000 to $20,000 price tags of existing systems.

The headset uses a saline-based wet electrode system to improve signal quality and targets the sensorimotor cortex.

“We’ve worked closely with patients to ensure the headset is lightweight, comfortable, and user-friendly,” says Prof. Gustin.

“Owning the technology offers us the potential to one day offer PainWaive as a truly affordable, accessible solution for at-home pain management, especially for those with limited access to traditional treatments."

The researchers are now calling for participants to register their interest in two upcoming trials of the neuromodulation technology: the Spinal Pain Trial, investigating its potential to reduce chronic spinal pain, and the StoPain Trial, exploring its use in treating chronic neuropathic pain in people with a spinal cord injury.

END


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Attachment theory: A new lens for understanding human-AI relationships

2025-06-02
Artificial intelligence (AI) is ubiquitous in this era. As a result, human-AI interactions are becoming more frequent and complex, and this trend is expected to accelerate soon. Therefore, scientists have made remarkable efforts to better understand human-AI relationships in terms of trust and companionship. However, these man-machine interactions can possibly also be understood in terms of attachment-related functions and experiences, which have traditionally been used to explain human interpersonal bonds. In an innovative work, which incorporates two pilot studies and one formal study, a group of researchers from Waseda University, Japan, including Research ...

Self-powered artificial synapse mimics human color vision

2025-06-02
As artificial intelligence and smart devices continue to evolve, machine vision is taking an increasingly pivotal role as a key enabler of modern technologies. Unfortunately, despite much progress, machine vision systems still face a major problem: processing the enormous amounts of visual data generated every second requires substantial power, storage, and computational resources. This limitation makes it difficult to deploy visual recognition capabilities in edge devices—such as smartphones, drones, or autonomous vehicles. Interestingly, the human visual system ...

Circadian preference is associated with impulsivity in adolescents

2025-06-02
DARIEN, IL – A new study to be presented at the SLEEP 2025 annual meeting found that adolescents who prefer to sleep and wake up later (“night owls”) reported greater impulsivity than those who prefer to sleep and wake up earlier (“morning larks”). Results show that adolescents with self-reported evening preference, or “night owl” tendencies, reported greater negative urgency and lack of perseverance, which are two aspects of impulsivity. This means that they were more likely to act impulsively when experiencing negative emotions and quit difficult tasks. In contrast, ...

Space pebbles and rocks play pivotal role in giant planet’s formation

2025-06-02
Scientists analysing an ultra-hot giant planet believe it was formed by absorbing lightweight gases like methane evaporating from tiny space pebbles, whilst being bombarded with large rocky objects.  Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to explore the atmosphere of WASP-121b, researchers successfully detected water (H₂O), carbon monoxide (CO), and silicon monoxide (SiO) in the side facing its star or ‘dayside’. They also found methane (CH₄) in the planet’s ‘nightside’ atmosphere.   Publishing ...

Still on the right track? Researchers at the University of Graz enable reliable monitoring of the Paris climate goals

2025-06-02
In the Paris Agreement of 2015, the international community of countries agreed to limit global warming to well below 2 °C, and preferably to 1.5 °C, compared to pre-industrial levels. This refers to the increase in global surface air temperature, inspected at any time of interest as an average over 20 years. The latest IPCC report expected the 1.5 °C threshold to be reached between 2030 and 2035. Climate researcher Gottfried Kirchengast from the Wegener Center and Institute of Physics at the University of Graz now has to revise this estimate: “Our ...

Study finds coastal flooding more frequent than previously thought

2025-06-02
Flooding in coastal communities is happening far more often than previously thought, according to a new study from North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The study also found major flaws with the widely used approach of using marine water level data to capture instances of flooding. “Government agencies and researchers use data from tide gauges to measure water levels in coastal areas, then use that data to estimate flood frequency in the region,” says Miyuki Hino, corresponding author of a paper on the study and assistant professor of city and regional planning at UNC. “Those estimates ...

Why forests aren’t coming back after gold mining in the Amazon

2025-06-02
Forests in the Peruvian Amazon aren’t growing back after gold mining — not just because the soil is damaged from toxic metals, but because the land has been depleted of its water. A common mining method known as suction mining reshapes the terrain in ways that drain moisture and trap heat, creating harsh conditions where even replanted seedlings can’t survive. The findings, published in Communications Earth & Environment, revealed why reforestation efforts in the region have struggled. One of the study’s co-authors is Josh West, professor of Earth sciences and environmental studies at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. “We’ve ...

Webb reveals the origin of the ultra-hot exoplanet WASP-121b

2025-06-02
Observations with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have provided new clues about how the exoplanet WASP-121b has formed and where it might have originated in the disc of gas and dust around its star. These insights stem from the detection of multiple key molecules: water vapour, carbon monoxide, silicon monoxide, and methane. With these detections, a team led by astronomers Thomas Evans-Soma and Cyril Gapp was able to compile an inventory of the carbon, oxygen, and silicon in the atmosphere of WASP-121b. The detection of methane in particular also suggests strong vertical winds on the cooler nightside, a process often ignored in current ...

New therapy to overcome treatment-resistant skin cancers

2025-06-02
A study has revealed why some patients don’t respond to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapy for solid cancer tumours and identifies a new combination treatment. Publishing in Nature Immunology, the international group of experts led by scientists at Newcastle University, UK has identified the biological mechanisms leading to a revolution in our understanding of ICB resistance. They identify a new combination strategy for treating ICB resistant metastatic skin cancers and suggest  that this can also be of benefit in the immunotherapy treatment of other solid cancers. Dr Shoba Amarnath, Reader in Immune Regulation at Newcastle University led the research. ...

Research alert: Molecular stress in old neurons increases susceptibility to neurodegenerative diseases, study finds

2025-06-02
As the global population ages, the risk of developing neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) continues to rise. But the molecular mechanisms behind the deterioration of brain cells have remained elusive. Now, a new study by University of California San Diego School of Medicine researchers has found that old neurons have unique defects resulting from molecular stress that make them especially vulnerable to neurodegeneration. “Aging ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

A threesome that hatches potato parasites

Young people discover the technologies shaping their future in the World Economic Forum and Frontiers for Young Minds collection

Real-time 3D visualization reveals potent antibacterial and antibiofilm activity against superbacteria

Abnormal uterine bleeding and insulin resistance are on the rise: Is there a connection?

Eye wear breakthrough: MXene-coated lenses for safer and smarter wearables

‘AI scientist’ suggests combinations of widely available non-cancer drugs can kill cancer cells

Phage therapy at a turning point: Global experts converge in Berlin to shape the future of antimicrobial medicine

Low calorie diets linked to heightened risk of depressive symptoms

Bronchiolitis, monoclonal antibody halves hospitalizations of children younger than six months old

Mum’s obesity linked to child’s heightened hospital admission risk for infection

Millions of new solar system objects to be found and ‘filmed in technicolor’ – studies predict

Pitt study has upended decades-old assumptions about brain plasticity

Hertz Foundation partners with Analog Devices to empower future leaders in analog, digital and software technology solutions

Would you hand over your health data if it meant better care?

Study examines how well wearable tech tracks fitness metrics

Dr. Nikolaos Koundouros wins 2025 Tri-Institutional Breakout Award

Low vs. High blood pressure avoidance in non-cardiac surgery: Neurocognitive outcomes unchanged

Telehealth can improve care for cats with chronic health issues

Researchers develop innovative model to study sense of smell

Birds may be drinking on the wing, but in moderation

Collaboration can unlock Australia’s energy transition without sacrificing natural capital

Study identifies proteins involved in the effectiveness of immunotherapy against blood cancer

Cannabis extract could treat fungal diseases

Pancreatic cancer spreads to liver or lung thanks to this protein

Eating an array of smaller fish could be nutrient-dense solution to overfishing

Han studying potential of next generation telepresence

Emory study finds molecular link between air pollution and pregnancy risks

Controlling bacteria with light: from tackling antibiotic resistance to “bacterial robots”

Johns Hopkins study shows how scientists can use black holes as supercolliders

Being incarcerated and living in areas where more have gone to jail is associated with higher death rates

[Press-News.org] Brain training game offers new hope for drug-free pain management