Pain doesn’t discriminate by species — and neither does the science needed to understand and relieve it. That’s the driving philosophy behind the Comparative Pain Research and Education Center (CPREC) at the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine, a hub where clinicians, scientists and educators have been reshaping how the world understands, measures and treats pain in animals.

Now, the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine is advancing its leadership in recognizing and treating pain in animals by expanding CPREC to include a clinical pain consultation service and by optimizing pain education as part of its veterinary student curriculum.

“NC State is a global leader in comparative and clinical pain research in companion animals, and we are constantly striving to generate new discoveries that can rapidly move to the clinical to help alleviate pain in veterinary patients,” says Dr. Kathryn Meurs, the Randall B. Terry Jr. Dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine. “Now, we are expanding the role of modern veterinary pain management in our veterinary student curriculum and with a clinical service to provide guidance for our house officers.”

A Mission Built on Collaboration

The Comparative Pain Research and Education Center brings together faculty, staff, students and collaborators across multiple disciplines to work on a single goal: to optimize pain control for every species, from companion dogs and cats to horses and beyond. 

Rather than treating veterinary pain science as a niche pursuit, the center positions it as a comparative discipline — one where discoveries in one species inform breakthroughs in others, and where rigorous, innovative research translates directly into practical tools clinicians and owners can use every day. 

CPREC has been a global force in driving veterinary pain research and management, but CPREC’s work has direct relevance to humans through comparative research as well. 

“This is not just a concept, but a reality of our work demonstrated by the robust NIH funding CPREC faculty hold,” says Dr. Duncan Lascelles, an internationally renowned expert in translational research in pain and CPREC leader. “The NIH funds translational projects that can benefit human health, and receiving NIH funding shows our faculty’s strength and active work in leveraging how comparative animal models can help solve critical gaps in human health research.” 

Collectively, CVM researchers have more than $12 million in active grants related to pain research from a variety of sources, including the NIH, animal health foundations and key veterinary industry partners. Their projects span a variety of specialties and subject areas and include comparative research approaches to improve the lives of both animals and humans. 

Globally Recognized Research

NC State CVM faculty members working under the CPREC umbrella are internationally recognized leaders in pain science. Their work spans the full arc of translational research: from validating owner-reported outcome measures to advancing objective, technology-driven assessment tools. Ongoing studies continue to expand our understanding of the impact of pain on cognition, emotions and social relationships in animals, while also extending the frontiers of our knowledge of the cellular and neuronal mechanisms driving pain.

Educating the Next Generation — and Everyone Else

Research is only half of CPREC’s mission. The center is equally committed to ensuring that knowledge reaches the people who need it most: veterinary professionals, researchers and pet owners alike.

For researchers and veterinarians, CPREC already has an impressive history of hosting educational events around pain management, including the sixth international Veterinary Pain Short Course held last month in Raleigh and the Pain in Animals Workshop (PAW) offered to experts from academia, the government and industry every two years in partnership with the National Institutes of Health. 

• The NC Veterinary Short Pain Course delivers focused, practical training to practicing veterinarians and veterinary teams, equipping them with up-to-date, evidence-based approaches to recognizing and managing pain in everyday clinical practice.
• PAW provides hands-on, in-depth training for researchers and clinicians, covering validated assessment tools and best practices in pain trial design and outcome measurement — skills essential to producing high-quality, reproducible science.

CPREC also partners with the other three North Carolina universities with biomedical campuses — Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Wake Forest University — to host or co-host the annual Maixner Pain Research Symposium. The event focuses on sharing advances in pain research and pain management, stimulating organic collaborative opportunities and promoting professional development of early career students and trainees. Honoring the legacy of a pioneering pain scientist, the late Dr Bill Maixner of UNC then Duke, these symposia also foster collaboration between veterinary and human pain research communities. The next symposium is Dec. 2. 

At NC State, the CPREC team also is leading the way in incorporating pain management into the veterinary student curriculum. Lascelles, who started teaching student selectives on pain and pain management in 2017, is working with Dr. Katie Sheats, associate dean and director of Professional Education and Admissions, to integrate those lessons throughout NC State’s veterinary curriculum.

In addition, Lascelles and CPREC are creating a pain management consultation service through the NC State Veterinary Hospital that is slated to begin in August. More information about the service will be available on CPREC’s new website here. The website also is expanding resources for pet owners, actively surveying them about what educational materials they need and how they want them delivered.

“Together, these initiatives will ensure that advances made in the lab don’t stay in the lab,” says Lascelles, who has been leading pain research at NC State for two decades. “They will reach the exam room, the research bench and the living room — improving the lives of animals experiencing pain and equipping the professionals and owners who care for them with better tools to recognize and relieve it.”

The goal is for the Pain Management Service to put into practice all of the clinical research results and advances CPREC and its faculty members contribute to the profession. 

“The Pain Management Service is the practical application of our research, with the added benefit that we may, at times, be able to draw on cutting edge research options,” Lascelles says. “The service will include consultation calls for veterinarians and external referrals from veterinarians with clients who need more specialized pain care.”

Lascelles, also the Dr. J. McNeely and Lynne K. DuBose Distinguished Professor of Musculoskeletal Health, has authored more than 270 peer-reviewed research papers and reviews, over 330 research abstracts and about 30 book chapters on pain management and research. He also has just been recognized as a founding fellow (honorary) of the ACVAA Pain Management Fellowship.

“As CPREC continues to grow, supported by donors and institutional partners committed to this mission, its dual commitment to world-class research and accessible education positions NC State as a global leader in comparative pain science,” Lascelles says, “one where better understanding of pain in animals ultimately benefits all species, including our own.”

In addition to Lascelles, other founding members of the center are Dr. Margaret Gruen, professor of behavioral medicine and associate director of the center; Dr. Michael Nolan, Randall B. Terry Jr. Distinguished Professor of Oncology; Dr. Santosh Mishra, associate professor of neurobiology in the Department of Molecular Biomedical Sciences; Dr. Kristen Messenger, now associate professor of clinical pharmacology at Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine; Dr. Joshua Pierce, professor of chemistry in the NC State College of Sciences; and Sarah Ann Craven, the director of strategic initiatives at the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine.