Chronic pain is a disease: Allan Basbaum

Pain helps us avoid potentially harmful situations and is necessary for survival. While most of us only experience acute pain while the painful stimulus is present, some people unfortunately suffer from constant pain that persists long after the stimulus is removed. Our guest this week, Allan Basbaum, a professor and chair of the Department of Anatomy at UCSF, is interested in chronic pain and its cause.

During our interview, Dr. Basbaum explains how pain is in the brain; the pain that one person feels can be more (or less) intense than another person’s perception even if the stimulus is identical. His lab investigates how chronic pain can occur by changes in the nervous system and the role of epigenetics (the interactions between your DNA and all other non-DNA elements). They are also interested in transplanting inhibitory precursor cells (cells that develop and eventually inhibit the activity of surrounding neurons) to help the spinal cord suppress pain signals. His findings could eventually lead to effective therapies to treat this debilitating disease.

More on the Basbaum Lab's research

Hosted by Osama Ahmed

Mapping the brain's blood vessels: David Kleinfeld

David Kleinfeld is a professor in the Department of Physics at the University of California, San Diego. In this month’s episode, Dr. Kleinfeld talks about the different, important questions his lab is addressing.

One part of his lab is trying to understand how the brain uses sensory input to process information about the environment. The lab uses the vibrissa (whisker) system in rats and mice to understand how they sense and navigate the world. Next, Dr. Kleinfeld discusses how changes in blood flow in the brain can be used to visualize electrical activity evoked by different stimuli. The tools his lab let them see blood flow at the level of a single blood vessel. Using these optical techniques, they can map every blood vessel and brain cell within sensory cortex. Creating a complicated “road map” of the brain can eventually be used to help interpret results from imaging techniques such as fMRI used in humans.


More on the Kleinfeld Lab's research

Hosted by Osama Ahmed