Chronic-pain (CP) affects at least 10% of the world’s population, and costs our society $1T. There is currently no effective approach to treating CP. To this end, there is an urgent need in the pain-research community to enable monitoring pain-related biomarkers, e.g. circulating DNAs, cytokines, endocannabinoids, over a long-period of time (> 3 months). Here, we show how implant incorporated with photonic nanomaterials known as upconversion nanoparticles (UCNP) are particularly suited for such purposes. We will argue that the unique optical properties of UCNP make possible a simpler wearable readout electronics with low power consumption, thus greatly prolonging operation time.
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