JEFFREY MOGIL
McGill University in Montreal.
http://www.mcgill.ca/campaign/historymakers/mogil/
The vocabulary humans use to describe pain is bewilderingly large: sore, stinging, throbbing, burning, aching, shooting and so on.
But the range of treatments that we can bring to bear on this abundance of agony is fairly narrow: a handful of analgesics or, as the old joke goes, if it hurts when you do something, stop doing it.
Why “it” hurts, and how it hurts different people on different days was a question that had been ignored until recent decades.
Pain was seen as a symptom to be managed, rather than a condition to be treated on its own.
Dr Jeffrey Mogil, E.P. Taylor Chair in Pain Studies in McGill’s Department of Psychology, is studying the multifaceted thing that is pain, bringing a variety of sophisticated techniques to bear on the problem.
“For about 10 to 12 years, our lab focus was on genetics,” says Mogil.
“Now we’re more interested in the relationship between pain and social communication in mice.”
Mogil made headlines around the world when he published research that showed that red-headed women respond to a specific kind of painkiller better than their blonde or brunette brothers and sisters,
due to a single gene that plays a role in both hair colour and analgesia.
His work proved that pain in women is transmitted through different mechanisms than pain in men,
a discovery that could eventually lead to new drug treatments tailored to an individual’s genetic profile.
Mogil hit the news again when he discovered that mice recognize – and react to – pain in other mice, a phenomenon known as “emotional contagion.”
[Chez les humains, ça s'appelle «empathie».]
Mogil’s experiments showed that mice who witnessed a fellow rodent in pain reacted much more vigorously to painful stimuli themselves, even if those stimuli were in a different part of their body.
The results add a psychological twist to pain management, says Mogil.
“Simply looking at an animal in one type of pain makes you sensitive to another kind of pain…
this social manipulation of pain sensitizes the whole pain system.”
Mogil says that as the population ages, there will be a greater demand to understand and treat pain.
The multidisciplinary expertise concentrated in McGill’s Centre for Research on Pain will be at the forefront of those efforts.
“We have people the next building over, not a time zone away. Things happen faster if we’re in the same place.”
*
Le Centre Alan-Edwards de recherché sur la douleur
http://painresearchcenter.mcgill.ca/
Pain research at McGill University is conducted at the AECRP (Alan Edwards Centre for Research on Pain). The centre comprises researchers from the Faculties of Medicine, Dentistry and Science. Its main goal is to bring together the McGill community of basic and clinical pain researchers to promote research that will result in cures for chronic pain. Through activities and international collaborations, the Centre focuses on new discoveries and their clinical applications that will improve the prevention and treatment of chronic pain.
McGill University in Montreal.
http://www.mcgill.ca/campaign/historymakers/mogil/
The vocabulary humans use to describe pain is bewilderingly large: sore, stinging, throbbing, burning, aching, shooting and so on.
But the range of treatments that we can bring to bear on this abundance of agony is fairly narrow: a handful of analgesics or, as the old joke goes, if it hurts when you do something, stop doing it.
Why “it” hurts, and how it hurts different people on different days was a question that had been ignored until recent decades.
Pain was seen as a symptom to be managed, rather than a condition to be treated on its own.
Dr Jeffrey Mogil, E.P. Taylor Chair in Pain Studies in McGill’s Department of Psychology, is studying the multifaceted thing that is pain, bringing a variety of sophisticated techniques to bear on the problem.
“For about 10 to 12 years, our lab focus was on genetics,” says Mogil.
“Now we’re more interested in the relationship between pain and social communication in mice.”
Mogil made headlines around the world when he published research that showed that red-headed women respond to a specific kind of painkiller better than their blonde or brunette brothers and sisters,
due to a single gene that plays a role in both hair colour and analgesia.
His work proved that pain in women is transmitted through different mechanisms than pain in men,
a discovery that could eventually lead to new drug treatments tailored to an individual’s genetic profile.
Mogil hit the news again when he discovered that mice recognize – and react to – pain in other mice, a phenomenon known as “emotional contagion.”
[Chez les humains, ça s'appelle «empathie».]
Mogil’s experiments showed that mice who witnessed a fellow rodent in pain reacted much more vigorously to painful stimuli themselves, even if those stimuli were in a different part of their body.
The results add a psychological twist to pain management, says Mogil.
“Simply looking at an animal in one type of pain makes you sensitive to another kind of pain…
this social manipulation of pain sensitizes the whole pain system.”
Mogil says that as the population ages, there will be a greater demand to understand and treat pain.
The multidisciplinary expertise concentrated in McGill’s Centre for Research on Pain will be at the forefront of those efforts.
“We have people the next building over, not a time zone away. Things happen faster if we’re in the same place.”
*
Le Centre Alan-Edwards de recherché sur la douleur
http://painresearchcenter.mcgill.ca/
Pain research at McGill University is conducted at the AECRP (Alan Edwards Centre for Research on Pain). The centre comprises researchers from the Faculties of Medicine, Dentistry and Science. Its main goal is to bring together the McGill community of basic and clinical pain researchers to promote research that will result in cures for chronic pain. Through activities and international collaborations, the Centre focuses on new discoveries and their clinical applications that will improve the prevention and treatment of chronic pain.
*
Photo. http://www.lilela.net/wp-content/uploads/souris.jpg
http://www.lilela.net/2007/08/10/la-sexualite-des-souris-une-affaire-de-nez/
