Pain Day – The Basics of Pain

Randall Reed PhDDirector Center for Sensory Biology

Professor

Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics

Department of Neuroscience

Department of Otolaryngology – HNS

Our Senses Share Many Common Properties

The IBBS Center for Sensory Biology

• Randall Reed - olfaction• Paul Fuchs - hearing• Michael Caterina - Pain/touch• Xinzhong Dong - Pain/touch• Craig Montell - vision/taste• Elisabeth Glowatzki - hearing• Jeremy Nathans - vision• King-Wai Yau - vision/olfaction• Angelika Doetzlhofer – hearing• Michael Deans - hearing

Classic View of the Senses The Five Senses - Provide Information

Vision Smell Taste Hearing Touch

Also Provide Protection

The Spectrum of Sensations

Pain from a Broad Perspective:

PainItchTouch

TRP Channels: Molecular Gatekeepers for the Senses

TRP Channels Mediate:

•Thermal Sensation / Pain•Taste

Some aspects of:

•Vision•Olfaction•Hearing

The Senses: Targets of Environmental Assault

Sensory Systems lie at interface between our inner and outer world – Subject to Damage

•Hearing Loss

•Burn/Itch

•Olfactory Loss

•Light Induced Damage

Key Opportunities/Practical Implications of Advances in Sensory Biology

Strategies to modulate (up or down) sensory perception (Pain/Auditory/Chemosensory)

Organization/Interaction of cells in tissues

Molecular and cellular genesis of specialized organelles

Understand processes of neuronal damage, repair and regeneration