Weekly lecture series hosted by the Center for Neuroregeneration and Department of Neurosurgery. 

Tuesdays at 9am-10am in Neurosensory Blue Bird Auditorium 

Title: Mechanisms Decreasing Opioid Sensitivity and Enhancing Hyperexcitability in Nociceptors After Spinal Cord Injury

Abstract: Greater than 50% of patients experience chronic pain after spinal cord injury that is refractory to treatment by opioids. Clinically, gabapentinoids appear to amplify opioid effects, increasing analgesia and overdose-related adverse outcomes, but in vitro proof of this amplification and its mechanism had been lacking. We show that exposure to common gabapentinoid drugs can reverse these injury-induced changes, restoring opioid responses to normal levels. In vitro demonstration of gabapentinoid potentiation of opioids suggests new mechanisms for making opioids more effective and/or new treatment avenues for neuropathic pain. Novel mechanisms in neurons and glia that maintain a chronic pain state will be discussed.

About the Speaker: Dr. Carmen Dessauer is Professor and Chair of the Department of Integrative Biology and Pharmacology and holds the John P. and Kathrine G. McGovern Distinguished Chair at McGovern Medical School, part of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Dr. Dessauer received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Louisiana State University and did postdoctoral training at U.T. Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas with Nobel Laureate Dr. Alfred Gilman. She is the Director of a NIH funded T32 graduate program, “Training Interdisciplinary Pharmacology Scientists,” Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), a Fellow and past chair of the Molecular Pharmacology Division of the American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET), a former member of the NIH Advisory Council for the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, and currently serves on the Executive committee for the Gulf Coast Consortium on Translational Pain Research.