Using speech and facial expressions to understand chronic pain
Quantitative Language and Facial Expression Phenotyping of Chronic Pain
This project looks at how the way adults speak and move their faces relates to long-term pain, aiming to find measurable signals that match patients' pain experiences.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | University of Rochester NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Rochester, United States) |
| Project ID | NIH-11143917 on NIH RePORTER |
What this research studies
You would be asked to speak and have your face recorded while describing symptoms and completing brief speech tasks, and researchers will apply computer analysis to the audio and video. They will use natural language processing to study word choice and emotion in speech, and audio-visual processing to analyze voice acoustics and facial expressions. The team will compare these digital measures across people with different chronic pain presentations to find consistent patterns. The goal is to create objective, quantitative markers that could make pain diagnosis and treatment more precise.
Who could benefit from this research
Good fit: Adults (age 21+) living with ongoing chronic pain would be the ideal participants for this work.
Not a fit: People without persistent pain, children, or those with severe speech or facial-movement limitations that prevent reliable recordings may not benefit from this approach.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this could provide objective measures of chronic pain to help personalize treatment and reduce trial-and-error prescribing.
How similar studies have performed: Related speech and facial-expression analyses have shown promise for psychiatric diagnoses and outcome prediction, but applying these methods to chronic pain is relatively new.
Where this research is happening
Rochester, United States
- University of Rochester — Rochester, United States (Active)
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Geha, Paul — University of Rochester
- Study coordinator: Geha, Paul
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page below.