Despite the well-documented harms of heavy drinking, alcohol remains deeply woven into human culture — crafted, consumed, and celebrated for centuries. People continue to drink not just for enjoyment, but also because alcohol may provide temporary relief from pain and negative mood.
University of Minnesota Associate Professor Jeff Boissoneault, PhD, is on a mission to find out why, zeroing in on alcohol’s influence on pain perception.
When alcohol and pain collide
As the director of the Minnesota Alcohol and Pain Lab, Dr. Boissoneault studies how pain and alcohol use interact — two experiences that often overlap in complex ways.
Using behavioral, psychophysiological, and neuroimaging tools, his team investigates how alcohol affects the experience of pain, with the goal of generating insights that could one day improve quality of life for people living with pain or substance use challenges.
The CRSC: A researcher’s go-to
When creating and conducting a study, Dr. Boissoneault’s go-to is the Clinical Research Support Center (CRSC). The CRSC brings together clinical research experts from a wide range of areas, who work together to help University researchers navigate the complex clinical research environment and set up their studies for success.
“Since I started at the University of Minnesota in 2023, my team has used CRSC services for every project we’ve developed,” says Dr. Boissoneault. “The CRSC has made the transition from my prior institution much smoother and has really come through when projects faced tight timelines.”
The CRSC is available to all University researchers and is particularly valuable to those early in their careers or new to the University. The Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) is one of the many collaborators behind the CRSC and leads its day-to-day operations.
Strengthening the study protocol
One of Dr. Boissoneault’s most recent studies on alcohol and pain was conducted at the Minnesota State Fair.
The study had a lot of moving parts, and Dr. Boissoneault and his team turned to the CRSC for help planning and implementing it.
Dr. Boissoneault began with a feasibility review, a free, award-winning CRSC service where all the right experts come together to thoroughly review a researcher’s study protocol in less than a week. Dr. Boissoneault’s feasibility review team included experts on clinical research, recruitment, clinical trial monitoring, biostatistics, and regulatory considerations.
The feasibility review armed Dr. Boissoneault with concrete ideas for strengthening his protocol and positioning the study for success.
“We’ve very much appreciated our feasibility reviews from CRSC staff,” Dr. Boissoneault says. “They’ve helped us identify and address potential issues in our study protocols.”
After the feasibility review, Dr. Boissoneault tapped the CRSC’s regulatory specialists to submit the study in ETHOS. With just one week before the IRB’s submission deadline for conducting research at the fair, the team worked quickly — and successfully — to get it submitted on time.
Fairgoers help unlock the secrets of pain perception
Dr. Boissoneault’s study at the Minnesota State Fair, featured in a Minnesota Star Tribune article, exclusively recruited fairgoers who passed through the University of Minnesota’s Driven to Discover building over the course of several days.
These volunteers, who had consumed varying amounts of alcohol, agreed to let Dr. Boissoneault and his team measure their pain thresholds using a sensor called a pressure algometer. This allowed them to measure the exact amount of force these volunteers reported as “pain.”
As the article notes:
“The researchers poked test subjects in the fleshy part of the hand between the base of the thumb and the index finger, also known as the first dorsal interosseus muscle. Then they recorded how much force the test subject was enduring at the moment that they told the experimenter that the sensation changed from pressure to pain. The results indicate that the pain-reducing effects of booze seem to increase in a linear fashion, according to Dr. Boissoneault. In other words, the more you drink, the less it hurts.”
Paving the way for better treatments
Many people suffering from physical pain, both acute and chronic, use alcohol to self-medicate in some way. Pain and alcohol use or addiction can become intimately entwined.
As the Minnesota Star Tribune article states:
“Researchers have found that people who seek treatment for alcohol problems are more likely to have chronic pain than the general population, and that the pain was a contributor to their desire to drink. [...]
Dr. Boissoneault said heavy alcohol users are at risk of getting into a vicious cycle, triggering a condition associated with heavy alcohol use called neuropathic pain. They also may experience pain when withdrawing from alcohol.”
By understanding the ways alcohol affects pain and the perception of pain, researchers like Dr. Boissoneault hope to identify the most promising psychological and pharmacological treatment targets to break the cycle between alcohol use and pain. For instance, it's possible that challenging an individual's expectation that alcohol is an effective pain reliever could reduce the likelihood of self-medication and its associated risks.
It’s a step toward a future where people struggling with addiction or pain have better options and a clearer path forward.
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