Nociception and pain in the developing rodent cortex

疼痛对于生存至关重要，即使是新生动物也会对潜在的伤害表现出强烈的行为反应。然而，目前还不知道新生儿的大脑是否被连接起来体验疼痛的不愉快以及其独特的感觉品质。这对于理解年幼动物是否像成年动物一样遭受痛苦以及我们如何最好地减轻这种痛苦非常重要。我们最近开发了一种真实的时间，无压力，无线记录的方法，从清醒的，老鼠幼崽的大脑，而他们仍然自由地与他们的窝和母亲。我们将使用这种方法来研究发育中大脑中疼痛相关活动的出现，以及它对止痛治疗的敏感性。在成年人中，我们知道大脑可以减少或增强疼痛体验，例如当注意力转移或期望增加时，但我们仍然不知道这是否发生在年幼的动物中。我们将发现这种“自上而下”的疼痛控制在什么年龄发展，使用新的无线光刺激技术来控制不同年龄的选定大脑区域。这将告诉我们动物在什么年龄能够控制自己的疼痛。不可避免地，一些年轻的动物确实受伤，无论是意外还是由于所需的临床或农业程序。我们将研究这种早期生命损伤是否会在大脑中留下“记忆痕迹”，通过改变某些大脑区域未来的生长或通过改变与疼痛相关的正常大脑活动在以后的生活中。这项研究计划的结果将为更好地测量和预防年轻动物的疼痛提供科学依据。

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.