Comment from Association for the Treatment of Neuroplastic Symptoms

I am a physician and President of the Association for the Treatment of Neuroplastic Symptoms (www.neuroplastic.org). The ATNS was founded in 2011 by volunteer physicians, mental health professionals, researchers, and patient advocates. Our mission is to educate professionals and the public about a new approach to chronic pain that has received substantial research support in recent years. Since the 1980s I personally have treated thousands of patients with chronic pain that was not caused by injury or disease. Instead their pain was generated by altered nerve pathways in the brain (neuroplastic pain, aka nociplastic pain) that can be successfully treated by any of several closely related neuroplastic recovery therapies (Ashar Y, JAMA Psych, Sep 2021; Donnino M, Pain Reports, Sep 2021; Yarns B, JAMA Netw Open, 2024) that treat the cause of the pain and not merely the symptom. Neuroplastic pain is highly prevalent. It was responsible for spine pain in 88% of over 200 subjects studied at a Physiatry clinic (Schubiner H, Journal of Pain, 2023). So this new neuroplastic treatment will be beneficial for a large proportion of the chronic pain population. My recommendation is that FDA not only consider medication for chronic pain but actively support education and training in neuroplastic diagnosis and treatment for the millions of people whose pain is not caused by injury or disease.