Pain is a complex experience that takes into account signals from both sensory and emotional brain regions. How the different brain regions fit together, and what role each region plays in the pain experience is unclear and represents a major challenge in understanding and treating pain.
The goal of our research is to understand the building blocks involved in shaping pain at a molecular and cellular level in order to identify specialised pain-o-centric molecules that can be targeted by new classes of drugs that will work better and have less side-effects than current treatments.
The Neurobiology of Pain Laboratory is part of the Pain Management Research Institute at the Northern Clinical School of the University of Sydney. We currently have projects investigating the descending pain pathway, changes in the spinal cord during chronic pain and regulation of inhibitory transmission.
The main techniques used are: whole-cell patch clamp electrophysiology, primary cell culture and acute dissociation, fast drug application and animal models of pain.
