Stimulus induced synaptic plasticity in the amygdala

急性疼痛对我们环境中的危险提供了重要的警告。然而，一些临床条件产生慢性持续性疼痛，持续时间超过原始损伤及其有用的作用。这种持续性疼痛是一种使人衰弱的疾病，影响了20%的澳大利亚人口，其特征是痛苦的感官体验和消极的情绪状态。持续性疼痛的临床管理仍然存在问题，这是由于与充分缓解疼痛所需的递增剂量相关的不可耐受的副作用以及当前药物治疗在某些临床重要疼痛状态中的有限疗效。在原始损伤消退后疼痛的持续性表明了导致持续疼痛的适应性发展。持续性疼痛背后的神经生物学变化定义不清。更好地理解这种神经生物学将导致更好的治疗方法来治疗持续性疼痛。杏仁核是一个大脑区域，对疼痛处理，内源性镇痛和情绪很重要。最近的研究表明，将疼痛信息传递到杏仁核的神经元通路对持续性疼痛的发展至关重要。关于这一关键的神经通路是否被疼痛改变，人们知之甚少。这个项目将使用电学和化学技术来确定短暂或持续的疼痛刺激如何改变疼痛信息传递到杏仁核神经元的过程。由短暂的疼痛刺激产生的变化可能代表持续性疼痛状态发展的初始变化。这些信息可以使我们更充分地了解从急性疼痛到持续性疼痛的转变，并且所定义的变化可能对药理学调节敏感。预防或抑制这些疼痛诱导的变化可以为持续性疼痛提供更好的治疗，或者理想地防止人们经历从急性到持续性疼痛的转变。

Acute pain provides important warnings about dangers in our environment. However some clinical conditions produce chronic-persistent pain that outlasts the original injury and its useful role. This persistent pain is a debilitating condition that affects 20% of the Australian population and is characterized by painful sensory experience and a negative emotional state. The clinical management of persistent pain remains problematic due to the intolerable side effects associated with the escalating doses required for adequate pain relief and the limited efficacy of current drug therapies in some clinically important pains states. The persistence of pain after the original injury has resolved suggest the development of adaptations that result in the ongoing pain. The changes in neurobiology underlying persistent pain are poorly defined. A better understanding of this neurobiology will result in better therapeutic approaches to persistent pain. The amygdala is a brain region that is important for pain processing, endogenous analgesia and emotion. A neuronal pathway that delivers information about pain to the amygdala has recently been shown to be critical for the development of persistent pain. Little is known about whether this critical neuronal pathway is modified by pain. This project will determine using electrical and chemical techniques how a brief or persistent painful stimulus changes the delivery of painful information to the neurons in the amygdala. The changes produced by a brief painful stimulus likely represent the initial changes in the development of a persistent pain state. This information may allow us to more fully understand the transition from acute to persistent pain and the changes defined may be sensitive to pharmacological modulation. Preventing or inhibiting these pain induced changes may provide better treatment for persistent pain or ideally prevent people undergoing the transition from acute to persistent pain.