Dr. Flood’s laboratory is interested in the effects of anesthetic drugs on pain transmission. General anesthetic drugs modulate the activity of many targets that are involved in the transmission of a noxious stimulus from a peripheral receptor to the spinal cord and then to the brain. Many anesthetic drugs including volatile anesthetics have biphasic effects where low anesthetic concentrations that can be present for several hours after anesthesia increase sensitivity to pain and higher concentrations (used in anesthesia) cause decreased sensitivity to pain. Dr. Floods lab uses behavioral, pharmacological and biochemical methods to determine which receptors and pathways are modulated by the anesthetic to cause these two effects. The overall goal of this work is to improve the treatment of pain in the immediate postoperative period.

Dr. Heath’s principal area of research interest is in the physiology of substance P and its receptor, the neurokinin 1 receptor (NK1R). Substance P and the NK1 receptor are believed to participate in the processing of pain information (nociceptive information) in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord. His research has provided evidence that substance P and the NK1 receptor may also be important for the development of the spinal cord and the establishment of pathways that are involved in pain signaling. Dr. Heath employs a wide range of techniques to study the activities of substance P, including electrophysiology, fura-2 calcium imaging, immunocytochemistry, in situ hybridization, electron microscopy, and gene targeting.

Jay Yang, MD,PhD
Professor of Anesthesiology, Professor of Pathology, &
Director Neurobiology Anesthesia Research

One isoform of voltage-gated sodium channel (NaV 1.8) thought to play a critical role in the development of neuropathic pain is intensively studied using biophysical and cell biological techniques. The underlying hypothesis is that disruption of a selected protein-protein domain interactions within the sodium channel protein may serve as a novel target for the treatment of neuropathic pain. A small polypeptide of potential therapeutic value is sought using the phage display screening technology. In another project, we use recombinant lentivirus designed to express short-hairpin RNA to selectively knock down the NaV1.8 channels. This gene-therapy approach circumvents the fundamental limitation that there are no drugs capable of isoform selective blockade of the members of the NaV family.