Pain Day – The Basics of Pain
Randall Reed PhD
Director Center for Sensory Biology
Professor
Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics
Department of Neuroscience
Department of Otolaryngology – HNS
Our Senses Share Many
Common Properties
The IBBS Center for
Sensory Biology
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Randall Reed - olfaction
Paul Fuchs - hearing
Michael Caterina - Pain/touch
Xinzhong Dong - Pain/touch
Craig Montell - vision/taste
Elisabeth Glowatzki - hearing
Jeremy Nathans - vision
King-Wai Yau - vision/olfaction
Angelika Doetzlhofer – hearing
Michael Deans - hearing
Classic View of the Senses
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The Five Senses - Provide Information
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Vision
Smell
Taste
Hearing
Touch
Also Provide Protection
The Spectrum of Sensations
Pain from a Broad Perspective:
Touch
Itch
Pain
TRP Channels: Molecular
Gatekeepers for the Senses
TRP Channels Mediate:
•Thermal Sensation / Pain
•Taste
Some aspects of:
•Vision
•Olfaction
•Hearing
The Senses: Targets of
Environmental Assault
Sensory Systems lie at interface between our
inner and outer world – Subject to Damage
•Hearing Loss
•Burn/Itch
•Olfactory Loss
•Light Induced Damage
Key Opportunities/Practical Implications
of Advances in Sensory Biology
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Strategies to modulate (up or down) sensory
perception (Pain/Auditory/Chemosensory)
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Organization/Interaction of cells in tissues
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Molecular and cellular genesis of specialized
organelles
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Understand processes of neuronal damage, repair
and regeneration