Fall 2017: Building Livability
UTA researchers are creating a more sustainable, affordable North Texas for the future.
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UTA researchers are creating a more sustainable, affordable North Texas for the future.
From carbon dioxide conversion to landfill mining, researchers at UTA are seeking viable alternative energy options.
Found in everything from space shuttles to dental fillings, composite materials have thoroughly infiltrated modern society. But their potential is still greatly untapped, offering researchers ample opportunity for discovery.
Within the particle showers created at the Large Hadron Collider, answers to some of the universe’s mysteries are waiting.
Model systems like pigeons can help illuminate our own evolutionary and genomic history.
UT Arlington's tiny windmills are bringing renewable energy to a whole new scale.
The stability of our highways, pipelines, and even manholes is reaching a breaking point.
Scientists believe they have discovered a subatomic particle that is crucial to understanding the universe.
UT Arlington researchers unlock clues to the human body’s most mysterious and complex organ.
UT Arlington researchers probe the hidden world of microbes in search of renewable energy sources.
Wounded soldiers are benefiting from Robert Gatchel’s program that combines physical rehabilitation with treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Tiny sensors implanted in the body show promise in combating acid reflux disease, pain and other health problems.
Nanotechnology researchers pursue hybrid silicon chips with life-saving potential.
Biomedical engineers combat diseases with procedures that are painless to patients.
Psychology Professor Robert J. Gatchel has focused international attention on a critical, yet overlooked issue: How chronic pain patients' irrational doubts about ever getting better can influence their reactions to pain and treatment outcomes.
Dr. Gatchel, a Distinguished Professor of Psychology and the Nancy P. & John G. Penson Endowed Professor of Clinical Health Psychology, edited a special issue of the Journal of Applied Biobehavioral Research on pain catastrophizing, which is the clinical term for irrational or maladaptive beliefs that pain will never get better. The issue brings together new studies from Asia, Europe, and North America and includes Gatchel's review of the literature.
"We are seeing that patients who tend to have these irrational beliefs are at greater risk of misusing opioid medicines and take longer to return to work when experiencing work disability for acute lower back pain," he says. "A more complete treatment model around this problem would promote changes in lifestyle habits and attitudes and strengthen social support systems alongside medical treatments. We need to take into consideration a series of treatment components that people have not considered before."
Each year, chronic pain costs the United States up to $635 billion in medical treatment and lost productivity. Scientific interest in the influence of pain catastrophizing on patient behavior and treatment success is growing. Gatchel hopes the special issue of the journal will help guide further research.
"New research on brain imaging and the genetics of catastrophizing are highlighting the increasing complexity of these beliefs," he says. "It all underlines the need for a more complete model for pain treatment."