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Purpose: To determine the current state of pain education across physiotherapy programs in Canada. Materials and methods: Educators that were responsible for teaching pain-related content at each of the 14 Canadian physiotherapy programs were invited to complete a cross-sectional survey. The online survey evaluated total time spent on pain education and the integration of content from international guidelines on pain education curricula. Results and conclusions: Complete data were obtained from all Canadian physiotherapy programs. The total median time spent on pain education was 18 h, ranging from 8 to 65 h. Across all programs, only 38.6% of the recommended pain curriculum themes were fully integrated within physiotherapy programs. Most of the curriculum themes were partially addressed (median: 52.6%) and a small minority were not addressed (median: 10.5%). There was an overall trend in which greater time spent on pain education corresponded to a higher proportion of pain curriculum themes that were fully integrated. This is the first national survey of pain education that has included all physiotherapy programs across Canada. These data provide a foundation for understanding the current resources and content dedicated to pain education and are an essential step in benchmarking and potentially improving pain education for physiotherapists.Implications for rehabilitationIntegrating pain education within entry-level physiotherapy programs is a foundational step in translating pain research into effective physiotherapy pain management.This survey of all entry-level physiotherapy programs across Canada shows considerable variability in the time and scope of pain education and that, on average, less than 40% of recommended pain education curriculum content is adequately addressed.This work highlights the need for national reference standards in pain education to help improve consistency across training programs.

Dopamine (DA) drives incentive learning, whereby neutral stimuli acquire the ability to elicit responses. DA influences the signaling molecule glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK3). Inhibition of GSK3 attenuates the development of behavioral sensitization to stimulant drugs and conditioned place preference (CPP), a measure of incentive learning. We examined the role of GSK3 in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) of rats in CPP produced by amphetamine (1.5 mg/kg, i.p. or 20.0 μg/0.5 μl/side intra-NAc) by administering the inhibitor SB 216763 (1.0, 2.0, and 2.5 mg/kg, i.p. or 0.03, 0.30, 3.00, and 5.00 μg/0.5 μl/side intra-NAc) during acquisition or expression. We hypothesized a dose-dependent effect of SB 216763 and that acquisition would be affected by smaller doses than expression. For the systemic groups, 1.0 mg/kg of SB 216763 did not block CPP; 2.0 mg/kg administered in acquisition but not expression blocked CPP; and 2.5 mg/kg administered in either phase blocked CPP. For the central groups, 0.03 μg/0.5 μl/side of SB 216763 prevented acquisition but not expression, whereas larger doses administered in either phase blocked CPP. Thus, systemic or NAc inhibition of GSK3 by SB 216763 during acquisition or expression blocks amphetamine-produced CPP and acquisition is sensitive to lower doses than expression.