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Department of Pharmacology

 

Recent work from the Smith lab, led by Gates Scholar Sampurna Chakrabarti, identified that mice with inflammation in 1 knee spent less time digging than healthy mice...

Many pain tests use a noxious stimulus to measure the threshold for saying “ouch” (if you are human) or withdrawing your paw (if you are a mouse). Recent work from the Smith lab, led by Gates Scholar Sampurna Chakrabarti, identified that mice with inflammation in 1 knee spent less time digging than healthy mice, digging being a natural behaviour for mice and thus producing a measurement of how pain affects everyday activities. Further work showed that the TRPV1 ion channel is unregulated in sensory neurones innervating the knee and that systemic administration of a TRPV1 antagonist good normalise digging behaviour. A report on this work written by Sam and Luke Pattison who assisted in the study was selected by Gates Cambridge for publication on their website.