Despite meager funding for pain research in the United States, the field of pain medicine is highly active, as demonstrated by growth in the number of pain medicine publications and journals, develop- ment of pain medicine associations, passage of pain medicine legislation for the military and Veterans Affairs, and most recently, congressional activity to pass the National Pain Care Policy Act of 2009. Significant advances are also evident in pain research, diagnosis, and therapy, including new techniques such as neurophysiologic testing, central nervous system imaging and diagnostics, and discoveries at the molecular and genetic levels of pain. Thus, current research, technology,.
