Clinical studies have shown that newborns can experience up to 14 painful procedures each day of admission at the neonatal intensive care unit. There is evidence that these early experiences can cause changes to the developing nervous system affecting, amongst other things, nociception in adulthood. Preterm infants are at particular risk from repeated noxious procedures owing to the extensive developmental and functional changes taking place in the CNS at that time. In this episode, we meet Dr Nynke van den Hoogen, who during her time at Maastricht University, used an animal model to assess whether the number of neonatal noxious events has an affect on acute and long-term mechanical sensitivity.

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