Biology

Dr. Arnab Barik
National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda MD, USA

Abstract:

Response to danger needs to be rapid and appropriate. Exposure to noxious stimuli can elicit a wide-range of defensive behaviors ranging from a reflexive withdrawal to more complex affective-motivational responses in efforts to alleviate or avoid pain. For example, standing barefoot on the beach on a hot day may be enjoyable but, as the heat grows more intense, our responses quickly escalate from shuffling feet to hopping and eventually running towards the water for relief. A similar sequence of events is seen experimentally in animals when they are placed in an inescapable chamber with a heated floor suggesting these behavioral responses are conserved. However, how the pain experience translates into a complex evasive response at the levels of cells and circuits still remains unclear. Taking advantage of recently developed chemogenetic, optogenetic, and anatomical tracing tools I delineated a novel brainstem circuit that acts as a substrate for controlling appropriate behavioral responses to painful stimuli. This work will help us understand how pain is processed by our nervous system and provide us with leads to elucidate brain circuits that control responses to other noxious stimuli like itch.