Popularity Contest: The Top News Stories

 and Papers of 2013 on PRF

What were you looking at?

by PRF Editors on 20 Dec 2013

As the year draws to a close, it’s a great time to take a look back at the stories and papers that caught the attention of PRF readers in 2013. We asked Google Analytics to give us 2013 by the numbers—what were the news stories and papers from the past year that garnered the most page views from the PRF community?

The most viewed news story, by a considerable margin, was coverage of a controversial study on antibiotic treatment for chronic low back pain (Antibiotics May Relieve Some Chronic Low Back Pain, Study Suggests). The story got more than three times as many page views as the runner up. If you google ‘antibiotics for back pain,’ you’ll see why—the top hit is the PRF news story. The PRF is here for researchers, but it’s nice to know that sometimes we connect with the wider world of Internet users, and provide the general audience with careful and complete reporting of new studies relating to pain.

Other most-viewed stories included news about peripheral nerve abnormalities in fibromyalgia, and a study challenging the dominant hypothesis that maladaptive plasticity is at the root of phantom limb pain. A late-breaking story that didn’t make the list, but that will surely get more attention in the days to come, covers the recent determination of the molecular structure of TRPV1 by cryo-electron microscopy, a big advance for both the pain field and for structural biology (see PRF news story).

Among Papers of the Week, those with commentary from PRF members routinely attracted the most attention. The top two most-viewed papers came from Lily Jan and colleagues at University of California, San Francisco, US, on the role of anoctamin channels in pain processing, and from Jürgen Sandkühler’s group at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria, who described a new mechanism of impaired spinal inhibition in neuropathic pain.

Below are the complete Top 10 most-viewed news stories and Papers of the Week for the past year, as of today, December 20.

Page views are one measure of community interest, but what really matters is what you think about the news and papers. What were your highlights of pain research for 2013? Let your colleagues know by leaving a comment below.

Most-Viewed PRF news stories: 1 Jan 2013 – 20 Dec 2013

1.  Antibiotics May Relieve Some Chronic Low Back Pain, Study Suggests

      Low-grade infection of herniated disc may be to blame

      30 May 2013

2.  Multiple Studies, One Conclusion: Some Fibromalgia Patients Show Peripheral 

     Nerve Pathologies

     Role of small fiber abnormalities in condition unclear

     6 Nov 2013

3.  Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation: The Next Wave in Pain Treatment?

     Non-invasive technique shows promise but needs more study

      3 Oct 2013

4.  A New Challenge to the Maladaptive Plasticity Theory of Phantom Limb Pain

     Source of pain remains elusive

     21 Mar 20131

5.  A Brain Signature for Physical Pain?  

     Complex pattern of brain activity marks response to painful heat

     7 May 2013

6.  Filling the Pain Drug Pipeline

     From small molecules to gene therapy, speakers at the Pain Therapeutics Summit

     in San Jose offer up diverse new approaches

     11 Dec 2012

7.  Brain Activity Shifts as Pain Becomes Chronic

     Lower back pain signals move from nociceptive regions to areas involved with

     emotional aspects of pain

     8 Oct 2013

8.  Novel Mechanisms of Ion Channel Regulation Implicated in Neuropathic Pain

     Studies identify roles for a long noncoding RNA and a ubiquitin ligase in rodent

     models of nerve injury

     25 July 2013

9.  A New Pathway for Paradoxical Pain

     Morphine hyperalgesia depends on neuron-microglia network separate from

     tolerance or analgesia pathway

     17 Jan 2013

10. A New Cause for Unexplained Pain in Children

      Small-fiber peripheral neuropathy not just for adults

      23 Mar 2013

Most-Viewed Papers of the Week: 1 Jan 2013 – 20 Dec 2013 

1.  TMEM16C facilitates Na(+)-activated K(+) currents in rat sensory neurons and

     regulates pain processing.

     Huang F, Wang X, Ostertag EM, Nuwal T, Huang B, Jan YN, Basbaum AI, Jan L Y

     Nat Neurosci. 2013 Sep;16(9):1284-90. Epub 2013 Jul 21. 

     4 comments, news

2.  Impaired excitatory drive to spinal GABAergic neurons of neuropathic mice.

     Leitner J, Westerholz S, Heinke B, Forsthuber L, Wunderbaldinger G, Jäger T,

     Gruber-Schoffnegger D, Braun K, Sandkühler J.

     PLoS One. 2013 Aug 23;8(8):e73370.

     3 comments

3.  WNT signaling underlies the pathogenesis of neuropathic pain in rodents.

     Zhang YK, Huang ZJ, Liu S, Liu YP, Song AA, Song XJ

     J Clin Invest. 2013 May 1;123(5):2268-86. Epub 2013 Apr 15.

     1 comment, news

4.  Activation of the Cl- channel ANO1 by localized calcium signals in nociceptive

     sensory neurons requires coupling with the IP3 receptor.

     Jin X, Shah S, Liu Y, Zhang H, Lees M, Fu Z, Lippiat JD, Beech DJ,

     Sivaprasadarao A, Baldwin SA, Zhang H, Gamper N

     Sci Signal. 2013 Aug 27;6(290):ra73.

     1 comment, news

5.  An fMRI-based neurologic signature of physical pain.

     Wager TD, Atlas LY, Lindquist MA, Roy M, Woo CW, Kross E

     N Engl J Med. 2013 Apr 11; 368(15):1388-97.

     3 comments, news

6.  Antibiotic treatment in patients with chronic low back pain and vertebral bone

     edema (Modic type 1 changes): a double-blind randomized clinical controlled

     trial of efficacy.

     Albert HB, Sorensen JS, Christensen B S, Manniche C

     Eur Spine J. 2013 Apr; 22(4):697-707. Epub 2013 Feb 13.

     news

7.  Hyperexcitable C fibers in fibromyalgia

     Serra J, Collado A, Solà R, Antonelli F, Torres X, Salgueiro M, Quiles C, Bostock H

     Ann Neurol. 2013 Nov 16. [Epub ahead of print] 

     5 comments, news

8.  Neuronal prostaglandin E2 receptor subtype EP3 mediates antinociception

     during inflammation.

     Natura G, Bär KJ, Eitner A, Boettger MK, Richter F, Hensellek S, Ebersberger A,

     Leuchtweis J, Maruyama T, Hofmann G O, Halbhuber KJ, Schaible HG

     Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Aug 13;110(33):13648-53. Epub 2013 Jul 31.

     2 comments

9.  Effect of duloxetine on pain, function, and quality of life among patients with

     chemotherapy-induced painful peripheral neuropathy: a randomized clinical trial.

     Smith E LM, Pang H, Cirrincione C, Fleishman S, Paskett ED, Ahles T,

     Bressler LR, Fadul CE, Knox C, Le-Lindqwister N, Gilman PB, Shapiro CL

     JAMA. 2013 Apr 3; 309(13):1359-67.

     1 comment

10. Pain relief produces negative reinforcement through activation of mesolimbic

      reward-valuation circuitry.

      Navratilova E, Xie JY, Okun A, Qu C, Eyde N, Ci S, Ossipov MH, King T,

      Fields HL, Porreca F

      Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Dec 11;109(50):20709-13. Epub 2012 Nov 26.

      1 comment