The impact of pain on the ageing nervous system
Fact file
| Duration |
Three to four years full-time |
|---|
| Eligibility |
Self-funded; Home, EU or International Students |
|---|
| Supervisor(s) |
Dr Gareth Hathway
|
|---|
| Application deadline |
No deadline |
|---|
About the project
The way in which pain is detected and processed changes significantly over the life-course. This project will utilise our world-leading skills in in vivo neurophysiology, neuropharmacology and cell biology to understand how pain mechanisms change as we age and to try and identify targets to treat pain in a more age-appropriate manner. We will use novel in vivo electrophysiology approaches along with MRI based imaging tools to study how the brain and spinal cord process pain. We will also look at how the nervous system interacts with both the systemic and central immune systems using post-mortem approaches (immunohistochemistry, qPCR, transcriptomics) and primary cell culture. Recent work from our laboratory has highlighted some processes that occur in the brain, spinal cord and immune systems that have profound and long-lasting impacts on later life pain processing.
Work in the Hathway laboratory seeks to understand how early life experiences shape later life pain processing. We use an integrative approach, which means we use multiple techniques to answer pressing questions about how the nervous system works. This also equips students with a diverse range of skills to shape their future careers. We are located in excellent laboratories in the Medical School at The University of Nottingham. We collaborate closely with colleagues in the UK and globally, in both clinical and pre-clinical pain research and are member of the Versus Arthritis national Pain Centre.
Students are supported in their projects and professional development, with a strong emphasis on producing world-class data that will be published in leading journals.
Funding notes
This project is available to self-funded students. Home applicants should contact the supervisor to determine the current funding status for this project. EU applicants should visit the Graduate School webpages for information on specific EU scholarships. International applicants should visit our International Research Scholarships page for information regarding fees and funding at the University.
References
- GREENSPON CM, BATTELL EE, DEVONSHIRE IM, DONALDSON LF, CHAPMAN V, HATHWAY GJ. 2019 Lamina-specific population encoding of cutaneous signals in the spinal dorsal horn using multi-electrode arrays. J. Physiol. 597(2):377-397
- GURSUL D, GOKSAN S, HARTLEY C, MELLADO GS, MOULTRIE F, HOSKIN A, ADAMS E, HATHWAY G, WALKER S, MCGLONE F, SLATER R. 2018 Stroking modulates noxious-evoked brain activity in human infants. Curr Biol. 17;28(24):R1380-R1381
- GOKSAN S, BAXTER L, MOULTRIE F, DUFF E, HATHWAY G, HARTLEY C, TRACEY I, SLATER R. 2018 The influence of the descending pain modulatory system on infant pain-related brain activity. eLife 11:7 pii: e37125
- HAYWOOD AR, HATHWAY GJ, CHAPMAN V. 2018 Differential contributions of peripheral and central mechanisms to pain in a rodent model of osteoarthritis. Sci Rep. 8;8(1):7122
- HATHWAY GJ, MURPHY E, LLOYD J, GREENSPON C, HULSE RP. 2017 Cancer Chemotherapy in Early Life Significantly Alters the Maturation of Pain Processing. Neuroscience doi: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2017.11.032.
- KWOK CH, DEVONSHIRE IM, IMRAISH A, GREENSPON CM, LOCKWOOD S, FIELDEN C, COOPER A, WOODHAMS S, SARMAD S, ORTORI CA, BARRETT DA, KENDALL D, BENNETT AJ, CHAPMAN V, HATHWAY GJ. 2017 Age-dependent plasticity in endocannabinoid modulation of pain processing through postnatal development. Pain 158(11):2222-2232
See this project on FindaPhD
The impact of pain on the ageing nervous system