Nociception and pain in the developing rodent cortex

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Pain is essential for survival and even newborn animals display strong behavioural reactions to potential injury. However, it is not known whether the newborn brain is wired up to experience the unpleasantness of pain as well as its unique sensory qualities. This is important for understanding whether young animals suffer from pain in the way that adults do and how we can best relieve that suffering. We have recently developed a method of real time, stress-free, wireless recording from the brain of awake, rat pups while they remain free to move about with their littermates and mother. We will use this method to investigate the emergence of pain-related activity in the developing brain, and its sensitivity to pain-relieving treatment. In adults, we know that the brain can reduce or enhance pain experience, as when attention is diverted or expectation increased, but again we do not know if this occurs in young animals. We will discover at what age this 'top down' control of pain develops, using new wireless light based stimulation techniques to control selected brain regions at different ages. This will tell us at what age animals are able to control their own pain.Inevitably, some young animals do get injured, either accidently or due to required clinical or agricultural procedures. We will investigate whether such early life injury leaves a 'memory trace' in the brain, by altering the future growth of some brain regions or by changing normal pain related brain activity in later life.The results of this research proposal will provide a scientific basis for better pain measurement and prevention in young animals.