Pain and its management are major medical problems. Prominent advances have been made in our understanding of the biology of systems that regulate nociceptive processing. These insights are made possible by the application of advanced methodologies for the study of system connectivity and receptor function. Thus, characterization of the response to a strong persistent stimulus or a nerve injury involves assessment of local release, characterization of postsynaptic activation, changes in afferent and dorsal horn neuron excitability, changes in connectivity as defined by sprouting, and cell death, and definition of the long-term changes in cell phenotype as defined by the appearance of immediate early genes and mRNA for a variety of putative transmitters and receptors. All of these approaches can be considered in the context of the pharmacology of systems which define the organized escape behavior of intact and unanesthetized animals. Thus, pain as a research focus merits two important considerations: 1) It presents a constellation of problems in neurobiology that are complex and worthy of intellectual pursuit; 2) The insights have a very real impact on patient well-being as they are translated into practical advances in the control of pain. We have established a venue for post-doctoral training in the application of state of the art techniques in pharmacology, physiology, pathology and molecular biology to the biology of nociception. This program, centered in the Department of Anesthesiology with close alliances to an active, research-oriented pain service, has several characteristics: 1) It is composed of a group of NIH-funded investigators with a history of significant productivity in pain research; 2) The expertise of the training grant faculty is such that it possesses the range of research efforts extending from membrane function to human behavior; 3) The group has a history of training an extensive number of fellows and has an active program consisting of formal didactic lectures and organized seminar programs. In short, this 5-year program seeks to provide funding for 2 new fellows per year (PhD or MD), each fellowship to last 2 years. The goal is to provide an in-depth training experience in modem methods of pharmacology, physiology, pathology, and molecular biology of pain. The complexity of the problems and the diversity of the training approaches emphasize that the training received by these fellows will provide a broad base of knowledge relevant to wide areas of neurobiology.
| Wegner, Kirsten; Horais, Kjersti A; Tozier, Nicolle A et al. (2008) Development of a canine nociceptive thermal escape model. J Neurosci Methods 168:88-97 |
| Chaplan, S R; Malmberg, A B; Yaksh, T L (1997) Efficacy of spinal NMDA receptor antagonism in formalin hyperalgesia and nerve injury evoked allodynia in the rat. J Pharmacol Exp Ther 280:829-38 |
