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The overall goal of my lab is to study how the spinal cord processes information about pain from the visceral organs in healthy individuals and following injury or disease using animal models of visceral pain syndromes. We have two major projects underway. First, we are interested in the role of gonadal hormones in pain arising from the viscera. It is well known that women are more prone to irritable bowel syndrome than men and it has been reported that symptoms fluctuate with the menstrual cycle. We are examining the role of specific gonadal hormones, estrogen and progesterone, on visceral sensitivity. We are examining how these hormones modulate synaptic function in the spinal cord, looking specifically at excitatory amino acids and their receptors. In addition, women and men respond differently to opioid analgesics and we are examining the biological basis for this difference in opioid sensitivity.

Visceral organs, in contrast to somatic tissue, are innervated by afferents in two nerves that project to different regions of the brainstem/spinal cord. For example we know that acute lower gut pain is mediated by pelvic nerve input to the lumbosacral spinal cord. However, in patients with IBS or inflammatory bowel disease, there is an expansion of the area of referred pain suggesting additional processing of colonic input over the splanchnic nerves to the thoracolumbar spinal cord. We have shown that input over the pelvic nerve, in the absence of colonic inflammation, inhibits spinal processing of colonic input to the thoracolumbar spinal cord. This inhibition decreases when the colon is inflamed contributing to visceral hyperalgesia. We are examining the mechanisms that underlie this differential processing focusing on inhibitory transmitters and receptors within the spinal cord.