UMB Research Center for Neuroendocrine Influences on Pain

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Public Symposium
Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Dental School, University of Maryland, Baltimore

Closed Door Session
September 28-29, 2006

Baltimore Marriott Waterfront

Program Goal:
For a growing list of chronic pain conditions, the prevalence, severity and duration of pain are greater in women then in men. Additionally, the potency of opiates—the analgesics most commonly prescribed for moderate to severe pain—show significant sex-related differences for several pain conditions and experimental models. These observations emphasize the critical need to address the impact of sex on nociception, pain and analgesia. Yet, studies involving male subjects exclusively, or those which ignore the potential for sexually dimorphic responses continue to dominate the literature. While NIH has taken the lead in directing researchers to address the impact of sex on experimental outcomes, progress in this area continues to be hampered by disparate models, methods, and even use of terminology across different laboratories and research groups. The goal of the Sex, Gender and Pain Workshop was to develop comprehensive guidelines for the conduct of basic, translational, and clinical studies of pain with regard to gender and sex. It is our intent that these guidelines will advance the field more quickly by providing a framework that all pain researchers can use in designing and communicating their experiments, and thereby afford a greater ability for studies to build upon one another.

Sponsored by:

• Merck Research Laboratories
• Center for Neurovisceral Sciences and Women's Health
• The Special Interest Group on Sex, Gender and Pain of the IASP®
• The University of Maryland Research Center on Neuroendocrine Influences on Pain
• American Pain Foundation
• Fannie E. Rippel Foundation
• The UCLA Center for Neurovisceral Sciences and Women’s Health
• The University of Maryland Dental School
• The University of Maryland Women’s Health Research Group

Peggy Mason, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Neurobiology, Pharmacology and Physiology at the University of Chicago presented a seminar entitled “Ventromedial Medullary Contributions to Visceral Nociception”. The seminar was presented Feb. 15, 2005 at 1:00 p.m., in Room 5-F-19 of the University of Maryland Dental School.

Opioids, such as morphine, produce analgesia thorough the activation of pain modulatory neurons in the central nervous system. Withdrawal from opioids, in contrast, produces pain facilitation, an effect that is also mediated by activation of CNS cells. Dr. Mason’s research concerns brainstem neurons that contribute to opioid pain modulation, and focuses primarily on cells in the rostral ventromedial medulla (RVM). Using intracellular physiological recordings and labeling techniques in concert with anatomical tract-tracing and immunochemical methods, Dr. Mason’s laboratory aims to understand the detailed neural circuitry of RVM cells that facilitate and inhibit pain transmission.

Co-sponsored by the UMB Research Center for Neuroendocrine Influences on Pain, and the UMB Department of Diagnostic Radiology and Nuclear Medicine.

Charles D. Cook, Ph.D., presented a seminar entitled “Effect of sex on nociceptive sensitivity and opioid antinociception” at 3:00 p.m. on Jan. 10, 2005, in room 5-F-19 of the Univ. of Maryland Dental School. Dr. Cook is a BIRCWH Scholar and an Assistant Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology in the School of Medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University. His research focuses on the roles of genetics and sex in the antinociceptive effects of opiates, and the modulatory function of dopamine upon opiate analgesia.
 

M. Catherine Bushnell, Ph.D., presented a seminar entitled “Pain and Emotion”. Dr. Bushnell is the Harold Griffith Professor of Anesthesia and Professor in Dentistry, Physiology and Neurology at McGill University. Her research is directed at understanding forebrain mechanisms of pain processing, as well as cognitive modulation of pain perception and relationships between pain and consciousness. Current research projects utilize brain imaging methods, psychophysical testing and microneurographic techniques to study the neural basis of pain processing in human subjects. (Jointly sponsored by the UMB Program in Neuroscience and the UMB RCNIP.)
 

Dr. Jon-Kar Zubieta is Director of the Depression Center, Associate Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Radiology, and Associate Research Professor for the Mental Health Research Institute at the University of Michigan.  Dr. Zubieta presented a seminar entitled: "Complex modulation of sustained pain: sex, genetic and cognitive influences" Sept. 29, 2004, 4:00 pm, Room 5-F-19, University of of Maryland Dental School.
 

RCNIP takes to the road!
We participated in a joint OWHR SCOR Symposium at UCLA entitled: “Sex Based Differences in Pain Mechanisms”. The symposium featured the most recent research on this topic conducted at both our Center, and the UCLA Women's Health and Functional Visceral Disorders Center.

Dr. Rebecca Craft, Assoc. Prof., Dept of Psychology, Washington State University presented
"Gonadal Steroid Modulation of Pain and Opioid Analgesia" in Room 5-F-19, Dental School.

Robert C. Coghill, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of the Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy at Wake Forest University School of Medicine presented a lecture entitled “Neural Correlates of the Subjective Experience of Pain”. The presentation took place August 13th, noon, in Room 5-F-19, HHH, Univ. of Maryland Dental School.

Dr. Coghill’s recent work was published this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS 100: 8538-8542).

Dr. Predrag Petrovic of the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute, presented “Brain, pain and cognition”, which described his recent research using PET imaging to investigate the cerebral substrates of pain perception and its cognitive modulation. His report on placebo and opioid analgesia appeared in Science, 295:1737-1740, 2002. The presentation took place at 2:30 – 3:30 p.m., in Room 5-F-19 of the Dental School.

Christian S. Stohler, DMD, Dr. Med. Dent., presented a talk on his recent research work titled "Imaging Analgesia in Humans", which included information recently reported in Science (Zubieta et al., 299:1240-1243, 2003). Dr. Stohler is the newly-appointed Dean of the University of Maryland Dental School. He spoke in Dennis Auditorium of the VA Medical Center at 1:00 p.m.

Visiting Scientist Jeffrey Mogil, Ph.D., presented a talk entitled, "The interaction between sex and genotype in the mediation of pain and analgesia: sex, pain and redheads." The presentation was given on May 14th at noon in room 5-F-19 of the UMB Dental School. Dr. Mogil is the E.P. Taylor Professor of Psychology at McGill University