User:Painscientist

Hello,

I am a neurobiologist.

My goal is to conduct translational research for the treatment of chronic pain conditions by resolving the neuro-pathophysiological interactions produced by impaired sleep and cardiorespiratory function. I work with animal models of chronic pain and extensively collaborate with Dr. Frank Tu to study pain in humans. Together we aspire to investigate the neurophysiological mechanism that underlies pelvic pain, a common, devastating disorder associated with sleep disruption and homeostatic disturbance. Pain and Sleep are two conditions which should mutually exclude each other, yet interact to produce a core neurological dysfunction with deleterious effects on quality of life and devastating cardiovascular effects. Whereas patients with chronic pain suffer an onslaught of debilitating insomnia, patients with sleep disturbances are prone to develop chronic pain. Even worse, both pain and sleep disorders are associated with an increased likelihood for cardiovascular disease (Von Korff et al. 2005, Somers et al. 2008). For these prevalent disorders (10-20% of adults), successful treatment remains limited because the neural mechanisms remain poorly understood. My research addresses this fundamental knowledge gap by investigating a brainstem locus at the crossroads of a pain, sleep and cardiorespiratory neuromodulation pathway.

As a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, I published a series of findings demonstrating that sleep and pain memories are linked by a common biological signaling pathway using transcript profiling, transgenic mice and electrophysiology. As a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Chicago, I developed a new technique for recording neurons in the brainstem for examining the role of pain modulatory centers and sleep. I continue to collaborate with my mentor, Dr. Peggy Mason to improve our understanding of this system. This work has generated new theories about how the brainstem modulates pain and yielded new insight about its role in homeostatic function. I expect in my early career at NorthShore to use this unique skill to record and alter the activity of neurons in this key region to examine these hypotheses.