This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
This project examines the effects of the immediate social and physical environment on pain sensitivity (nociception) in laboratory mice, primarily utilizing behavioral measures of nociception. Other measures include examination of activity in the spinal cord (in areas where nociceptive input is received), and blood-borne hormones involved in the stress response. One aim of the project is to better understand the factors that underlie variability in nociception, both between and within individuals.
The investigators will study how the immediate presence of familiar and unfamiliar conspecifics (members of the same species) affects the expression of pain behaviors. The project also examines how physically, socially, and cognitively enriching housing environments (that include running wheels, toys, climbing apparatus, etc.) affect behavioral responses to noxious (pain-producing) stimuli. In a broad sense, this project will contribute to the understanding of how the brain modulates pain experience in response to stimuli in the environment. Researchers studying nociception in laboratory animals will gain valuable information about the effects of social and physical housing environments on these behaviors.
Another goal of this project is to understand how the expression of overt pain behaviors in mice affects other animals that observe them. Preliminary studies in a variety of species suggest capacity for a rudimentary level of empathy for others' pain, usually at the level of "emotional contagion". This project attempts to explore that phenomenon further, by assessing the social behaviors (i.e., approach or avoidance) in mice that are exposed to a familiar or an unfamiliar conspecific that is displaying pain behavior. These studies will contribute to the growing field of social neuroscience, the study of the biological mechanisms of social behaviors.
As a Research in Undergraduate Institutions project, the investigators will be undergraduate students working under the supervision of the PI. Thus, a broader impact of the research is to participate in the training of bright and promising behavioral scientists.
