About Professor Stephen Bruehl
Stephen Bruehl is a Professor of Anesthesiology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, in Nashville, Tennessee (USA). He received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology in 1994, and has worked clinically in the past with chronic pain patients as a member of a multidisciplinary chronic pain management team.
Throughout his career, Bruehl has conducted research focused on understanding the mechanisms of and factors influencing chronic pain. He has had long-standing interests in topics that include Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, the influence of endogenous opioids and psychosocial factors on pain, and interactions between the cardiovascular and pain modulatory systems.
His recent work has focused on identifying factors that may predict responses to opioid analgesics, and understanding the mechanisms that contribute to these predictive effects. He has published more than 130 peer-reviewed articles regarding pain, as well as a number of book chapters regarding CRPS.
Professor Bruehl has been principal investigator on six pain-related research grants funded by the National Institutes of Health in the U.S., and he is Associate Editor of the journal Pain and the Annals of Behavioral Medicine.
Bruehl was as a member of the IASP committee that developed the new IASP diagnostic criteria for CRPS, and was co-leader of the research consortium that conducted the studies validating the Budapest Criteria.
His research work in CRPS is ongoing, with current projects focused on better understanding genetic and oxidative stress mechanisms that may contribute to the condition.