pain it’s something we go through our
whole lives trying to avoid from the
acute pain of a burn or cut its the
chronic pain of cancer to the psychic
pain of depression but perhaps the pain
that hurts the worst is a social pain
it’s the pain of isolation of being
excluded of being an outsider now I’ve
been an outsider many times in my life
I am a black Jewish woman psychiatrist
neuroscientist immunologist I’ve never
really fit in but I’m here to tell you
that there’s a power and coming in from
the outside it can help you to make
connections and to generate insight and
I want to tell you a story about how I
came into the outside to science and
made connections between pain and the
immune system and why that’s important
for women so one day when I was in
graduate school my best friend called me
and told me that she had lupus and my
heart sank because I knew what that
meant
lupus is an autoimmune disorder that’s a
disease where the immune system instead
of doing its job fighting off infection
instead attacks the body and it causes
all sorts of problems the only
treatments we have are these powerful
immunosuppressants that sometimes can be
worse than the actual disease and over
the years I’ve watched my friend lose
her hair get skin problems breathing
problems and sometimes have pain so bad
she couldn’t get out of bed and yet
throughout this all she has had the most
wonderful positive attitude she’s
incredibly resilient she goes out and
has adventures I on the other hand felt
helpless and almost guilty because Here
I am I’m a physician and I’m an
immunologist and I can’t give her any
better treatment options
so my friends story is not unusual lupus
is a disease that affects 9 times more
women than men for every 9 women that
get it one man gets it and indeed over
80% of all autoimmune disease occurs in
women our immunity isn’t the only
disorder that happens more to women
depression and anxiety and pain also
happen more in women now the pain might
be counterintuitive because women go
through the pain of childbirth so aren’t
they more pain tolerant that’s actually
not the case women report pain more and
their pain neurons are more sensitive I
started to get really interested in this
problem of pain as a psychiatrist and
seeing so many women come sent to me
from physicians because they couldn’t
find a cause for the pain and I got
interested in the molecular basis and I
was surprised to find that pain in the
immune system are tightly linked so our
neurons and our immune cells talk to
each other in almost every single organ
of the body and when that communication
goes well we fight off infection and we
keep homeostasis or balance in the body
but when that communication doesn’t work
when it’s dysfunctional we get these
disorders of autoimmunity and of pain
we’ve been studying this for such a long
time I started to wonder why don’t we
understand these disorders better and
why don’t we understand why they happen
more in women so once again I got to
come in from the outside I went from
being an immunologist and I went into a
neuroscience lab and that’s when I got a
clue so the first observation I made was
that neuroscientists tend to study males
men and male organisms like male mice
and a study that came out just a few
years ago did a survey of the sexes
studied by different disciplines in
science and found there was an
overwhelming male based bias and the
bias was worst in neuroscience with
five-and-a-half experiment studying
males – one experiment
studying females it was second worst in
pharmacology and that’s kind of scary
because that’s the science that studies
and tests drugs and 80% of all the drugs
we made as a venn were tested at males
only this was shocking to me because as
an immunologist I study predominantly
females and so the first observation is
there is a male bias in neuroscience the
second observation is that the
neuroscientist in the immunologists
don’t really talk to each other and it’s
not because we don’t like each other
it’s because the language and the focus
and the techniques are different and so
sometimes it’s hard for neuroscientists
to really hear what the mean ologists
are saying and vice-versa and so there’s
a separation in the sexes and there’s a
separation in the sciences and in the
sexes that they study here’s the irony
the body has made the connection the
nervous system and the immune system
talked to each other all the time in the
body but the scientists who study these
two fields don’t and this reminded me of
a parable of blind people who are
encountering an elephant for the first
time so they want to figure out what is
this elephant thing and one goes and
grabs onto the leg and says Oh an
elephant is like a pillar and the other
goes and starts pulling on the thao and
said oh no an elephant is clearly like a
rope you are wrong but the reality is an
elephant is like both of those things
and even more so how do we fix this
problem how do we tell the true nature
of the elephant part of the answer lies
in coming in from the outside and I’m
starting to get comfortable with this
pain of being an outsider I was able to
make these observations precisely
because I came in as a neurosis as an
immunologist into neuroscience and
moreover because I was a black woman
that was more likely to suffer from
these disorders so more and more of us
are starting to connect we’re starting
to talk and this connection is actually
generating
in sight we’re using words like neuro
immune system and as we talk more and
more we’re generating more insight into
the nature of pain and I believe this is
going to help us find treatments for
both men and women so this story of
neuroscience and immunology is just an
example there are many many many
elephants out there some of you may be
dealing with elephants in your own lives
so I would say be fearless cross
boundaries jump into an eel fit new
field try something you’ve never tried
before
be curious about another perspective and
welcome those in who are of different
backgrounds that is how we’re going to
address these elephants of pain
depression autoimmunity and that’s how
we’re gonna give hope I have hope for
those who are suffering from these
disorders who are living with these
disorders including my friend
you
whole lives trying to avoid from the
acute pain of a burn or cut its the
chronic pain of cancer to the psychic
pain of depression but perhaps the pain
that hurts the worst is a social pain
it’s the pain of isolation of being
excluded of being an outsider now I’ve
been an outsider many times in my life
I am a black Jewish woman psychiatrist
neuroscientist immunologist I’ve never
really fit in but I’m here to tell you
that there’s a power and coming in from
the outside it can help you to make
connections and to generate insight and
I want to tell you a story about how I
came into the outside to science and
made connections between pain and the
immune system and why that’s important
for women so one day when I was in
graduate school my best friend called me
and told me that she had lupus and my
heart sank because I knew what that
meant
lupus is an autoimmune disorder that’s a
disease where the immune system instead
of doing its job fighting off infection
instead attacks the body and it causes
all sorts of problems the only
treatments we have are these powerful
immunosuppressants that sometimes can be
worse than the actual disease and over
the years I’ve watched my friend lose
her hair get skin problems breathing
problems and sometimes have pain so bad
she couldn’t get out of bed and yet
throughout this all she has had the most
wonderful positive attitude she’s
incredibly resilient she goes out and
has adventures I on the other hand felt
helpless and almost guilty because Here
I am I’m a physician and I’m an
immunologist and I can’t give her any
better treatment options
so my friends story is not unusual lupus
is a disease that affects 9 times more
women than men for every 9 women that
get it one man gets it and indeed over
80% of all autoimmune disease occurs in
women our immunity isn’t the only
disorder that happens more to women
depression and anxiety and pain also
happen more in women now the pain might
be counterintuitive because women go
through the pain of childbirth so aren’t
they more pain tolerant that’s actually
not the case women report pain more and
their pain neurons are more sensitive I
started to get really interested in this
problem of pain as a psychiatrist and
seeing so many women come sent to me
from physicians because they couldn’t
find a cause for the pain and I got
interested in the molecular basis and I
was surprised to find that pain in the
immune system are tightly linked so our
neurons and our immune cells talk to
each other in almost every single organ
of the body and when that communication
goes well we fight off infection and we
keep homeostasis or balance in the body
but when that communication doesn’t work
when it’s dysfunctional we get these
disorders of autoimmunity and of pain
we’ve been studying this for such a long
time I started to wonder why don’t we
understand these disorders better and
why don’t we understand why they happen
more in women so once again I got to
come in from the outside I went from
being an immunologist and I went into a
neuroscience lab and that’s when I got a
clue so the first observation I made was
that neuroscientists tend to study males
men and male organisms like male mice
and a study that came out just a few
years ago did a survey of the sexes
studied by different disciplines in
science and found there was an
overwhelming male based bias and the
bias was worst in neuroscience with
five-and-a-half experiment studying
males – one experiment
studying females it was second worst in
pharmacology and that’s kind of scary
because that’s the science that studies
and tests drugs and 80% of all the drugs
we made as a venn were tested at males
only this was shocking to me because as
an immunologist I study predominantly
females and so the first observation is
there is a male bias in neuroscience the
second observation is that the
neuroscientist in the immunologists
don’t really talk to each other and it’s
not because we don’t like each other
it’s because the language and the focus
and the techniques are different and so
sometimes it’s hard for neuroscientists
to really hear what the mean ologists
are saying and vice-versa and so there’s
a separation in the sexes and there’s a
separation in the sciences and in the
sexes that they study here’s the irony
the body has made the connection the
nervous system and the immune system
talked to each other all the time in the
body but the scientists who study these
two fields don’t and this reminded me of
a parable of blind people who are
encountering an elephant for the first
time so they want to figure out what is
this elephant thing and one goes and
grabs onto the leg and says Oh an
elephant is like a pillar and the other
goes and starts pulling on the thao and
said oh no an elephant is clearly like a
rope you are wrong but the reality is an
elephant is like both of those things
and even more so how do we fix this
problem how do we tell the true nature
of the elephant part of the answer lies
in coming in from the outside and I’m
starting to get comfortable with this
pain of being an outsider I was able to
make these observations precisely
because I came in as a neurosis as an
immunologist into neuroscience and
moreover because I was a black woman
that was more likely to suffer from
these disorders so more and more of us
are starting to connect we’re starting
to talk and this connection is actually
generating
in sight we’re using words like neuro
immune system and as we talk more and
more we’re generating more insight into
the nature of pain and I believe this is
going to help us find treatments for
both men and women so this story of
neuroscience and immunology is just an
example there are many many many
elephants out there some of you may be
dealing with elephants in your own lives
so I would say be fearless cross
boundaries jump into an eel fit new
field try something you’ve never tried
before
be curious about another perspective and
welcome those in who are of different
backgrounds that is how we’re going to
address these elephants of pain
depression autoimmunity and that’s how
we’re gonna give hope I have hope for
those who are suffering from these
disorders who are living with these
disorders including my friend
you
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