Anthony Jones is professor of Neuro-rheumatology at Manchester University and leads the Human Pain Research Group. Whilst at the Hammersmith Hospital he pioneered the development of techniques to image neurochemical and metabolic brain responses to pain using Positron Emission Tomography. Over the last twenty years Dr. Jones has used a number of functional brain imaging techniques to understand that the normal and abnormal mechanisms of pain perception. There is now the exciting prospect of using some of the insights gained in these studies to develop new approaches to pharmacological and cognitive interventions for chronic pain. Dr. Jones also leads the International Association of Pain Musculoskletal Pain Taskforce and is leading the development of National and International Guidelines on the Integrated Management of Musculoskeletal Pain (jointly sponsored by the BSR and the IASP).

Previous research has concentrated on the development of new techniques to identify the network of brain structures in the human brain that is involved in nociceptive processing and some of the endogenous pharmacological processes that may modify this. We were the first group to achieve these two goals. The main applications have been in musculoskeletal and post-stroke pain. Candidate mechanisms for fibromyalgia and post-stoke pain have been identified by recent PET studies; funded by our Arthritis Research Campaign program grant and previous MRC grants. Current research is focused on establishing a causal relationship between some of these candidate mechanisms and different types of chronic musculoskeletal pain. Having identified these, our long-term goal is to identify new therapeutic targets for modifying such abnormal brain mechanisms.