Although Berkley is still working against the tide, her
collaborative findings are beginning to influence clinical
practice. MacKenzie Professor, Program In Neuroscience For more
than 35 years Karen Berkley, a MacKenzie Professor in the
Neuroscience Program, has been researching what the National
Institutes of Health estimates is the costliest health problem
in America—chronic pain. Pain hurts, but chronic pain can kill.
"There are all kinds of data showing that unrelenting and
unalleviated pain can be lethal," Berkley explains. "It can
shorten life and clearly reduces the quality of life." Although
the experience of pain gets our prompt attention, we haven't
approached cures with the same enthusiasm we show for many other
conditions and diseases. "Because it's not immediately fatal,
like a heart attack, or as easy to track and measure, like
cancer or coronary disease," Berkley says, "we're not likely to
view chronic pain as an urgent medical problem." And there's
that thorny problem in treating chronic pain—