When we think of research on pain and how it manifests within the physiology of the human body, myofascial tissues have been a persistently understudied part of the picture. Thats whya number of newly announced grants, funded as part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Helping to End Addiction Long-termInitiative, or NIH HEAL Initiative, are so noteworthy.

Myofascial tissues are potentially involved in nearly all common chronic musculoskeletal pain conditions, like chronic low-back pain, neck and shoulder pain, headache, and temporomandibular disorders. But our understanding of myofascial pain is severely hampered by a basic lack of tools to differentiate between normal and abnormal myofascial tissues.

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