Pain rerouted my life - so I made it my work. Neuro nerd. Chronic illness realist. I believe rest is power, science is for everyone, and the body knows more than we’re taught to trust.
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This! If you read the paper they also were able to ID potential therapeutics based on the biomarkers. Spoiler, the therapeutics were not traditional analgesics. Though something like this is years (maybe even decades) from the clinic, this is huge first step!
A blood test for pain? New work in Nature identifies circulating biomarkers that distinguish chronic pain states—offering a path toward objective, biologically grounded diagnostics. #PainResearch #Neuroskyence #Biomarkers #ScienceWatch #SciComm #ScienceInTranslation #ChronicPain
Doing my best to get better at this! You will see more and more from me as I try to communicate what we do, how we do it, and what it all means! Hoping to reach not just the science folks here on BS but non-scientists as well!
3/ DRG are where sensory neurons, including nociceptors, send their signals to the spinal cord.
2/ Here is what the human spinal cord and real DRG look like in humans! Image from human donor and our journal cover in www.jpain.org/article/S152.... White arrows show the DRG, the same clusters shown in the cartoon above.
1/ Word of the Week: Dorsal Root Ganglia (DRG) Clusters of nerve cell bodies (soma) near the spinal cord that relay sensory signals - including pain - from the body to the brain. Curious what they look like in real human tissue? See thread below #NeuroSkyence #PainResearch #ChronicPain #SciComm
One of our final papers from this collaborative effort involving collaborators at UNM, Mayo Clinic, & McGill. Here we validate a humanized scFv targeting hP2XR. Kudos to first-author @docnessmonster.bsky.social & former lab member Mark S. for making this happen! journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
6 📖 Read the full study here! www.jci.org/articles/vie...
5/ 💡 Toward personalized care: The study shows that inflammation is the earliest shift in diabetic nerve damage. Controlling it early may prevent the cascade. This opens a window for preventive intervention.
4/ 🧠 Why it matters: This work reveals a progressive cascade: 🧱 Perineurial disruption → 🔥 Immune infiltration → 🧵 Fibrotic remodeling → 📉 Schwann cell loss Each stage offers a window for intervention.
3/ 🧬 What did they find? Inflammation dominates: IL6, IL1B, CXCL2 were upregulated in DPN nerves Fibrosis follows: TGF-β and Tenascin signaling increased in late-stage axonal loss Sensory nerves are hit hardest, especially the sural nerve
2/ 🔬 What did they do? The team collected human tibial and sural nerves from patients with and without diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN). Using bulk and spatial transcriptomics, they mapped gene activity and tracked inflammation, cell types, and axonal mRNA transport.
🧠From Lab To Life Why do peripheral nerves suffer axonal loss in diabetes? A study led by @dianatavf.bsky.social from the @tedpricethepainguy.bsky.social lab showed how inflammation leads to neural fibrosis in diabetic peripheral neuropathy! #PainResearch #Neuroskyence #FromLabToLife 1/
📸 Big day in the lab! Our new electrophysiology rig is officially up and running — huge thanks to everyone who helped make this happen. Excited for the science ahead! 🧠⚡️ @alleslab.bsky.social @cincychildrens.bsky.social #PainResearch
This work is finally online as in-press preview! JCI - Cell and molecular profiles in peripheral nerves shift toward inflammatory phenotypes in diabetic peripheral neuropathy www.jci.org/articles/vie...
FlyBase, a Drosophila database, will lose a third of its team in early October because the Harvard grant that covered the employees’ salaries was canceled. Scientists warn that losing FlyBase could devastate fly research. By @claudia-lopez.bsky.social www.thetransmitter.org/community/ha...
🔬 Very cool work from @aubinmoutal.bsky.social, @khannalabuf.bsky.social, and team! These studies reveal how auto-antibodies—like those seen in autoimmune diseases—can directly target sensory neurons in the dorsal root ganglia, driving painful neuropathies. #PainResearch
This is a step toward truly personalized pain treatment — the kind that adds life to the years for people living with neuropathic pain. 🧠💜 Deep thanks to the donors and families who make this work possible. 4/4 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40657722/
In one donor, gabapentin calmed down hyperactive neurons and reversed abnormal gene activity - especially in pathways tied to inflammation and ion channels. We’re not just studying how gabapentin works - we’re learning who it works for and why. 3/4
We paired patch-clamp electrophysiology with gene expression analysis and found that gabapentin’s effects were tied to both the type of neuron and the donor's unique biology. The science is complex, but the takeaway is simple: Gabapentin’s pain relief isn’t one-size-fits-all. 2/4
Gabapentin is widely prescribed for nerve pain, but it doesn’t work the same for everyone. We studied actual human sensory neurons from donors and found that some responded strongly - and others hardly at all. #fromlabtolife #neuroskyence #PainResearch 1/4
That being said novel research shows Tylenol effects Nav1.7/1.8 currents so these targets are still therapeutic targets. I believe data from the Waxman lab showed specific areas of NaV1.7 are responsible for specific pain syndromes. Perhaps that may help ID new drugs for NaV1.8 🤔
As others have said the effect of suzetrigine was barely/not significant from placebo in clinical trials, though data from the Bean lab shows an effect on NaV1.8 currents. I am thinking this may not be the ‘best’ target.
Most people think of Tylenol as a dull, background player. But this research reframes it as a drug that might directly reduce neural excitability—putting it in line with newer, targeted non-opioid strategies. 4/4
🧪 It blocks Nav1.7 and Nav1.8 at normal doses ⚡ These channels help fire off pain signals 🧠 This suggests Tylenol acts on pain-sensing neurons, not just in the brain 3/4
Acetaminophen is found in over 600 medications—from OTC pain relief to cold & flu combos. Understanding how it really works helps us use it more wisely and possibly develop safer, more effective pain treatments. 2/4
🧠 From Lab to Life New research shows Tylenol may quiet pain at its source by blocking Nav1.7 and Nav1.8, sodium channels critical for pain signaling. That’s a big deal for the most common active ingredient in U.S. meds. 1/4 #FromLabToLife #PainResearch #NeuroSkyence
Now online - our studies of mouse and human sensory neurons in the context of visceral pain! #PainResearch journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Our collaborative study with the de la Peña lab is now online! Here we analyzed ephys & transcriptomic actions of gabapentin on hDRG neurons. Kudos to co-first authors Jenna & @docnessmonster.bsky.social. Special thks to our donors & their families #PainResearch journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
In case anyone tells you “you aren’t worth anything,” your genetic data is worth $17 million. #23andMe #Regeneron #DNA #IAmNotForSale
Cool history of #LLMs told by the experts! #ai
We are officially in Cincy! #neuroskyence #painresearch
We made it to St. Louis!!! #DogIsMyCopilot #STL #GatewayArch
In Oklahoma City we stayed at the Fordson Hotel. It used to be a Model T Assembly plant! Gorgeous hotel in a nice neighborhood west of downtown! Pierre and I finally felt like we could relax and breathe for the first time in days! #DogIsMyCopilot #Ford #ModelT #OKC #MovingOnUp
Hasta Luego Albuquerque! We are off on a new adventure to Cincinnati #NewBeginnings #CincinnatiBound
Our book chapter is online! #painresearch #neuroskyence
NIH announces that it will move all grant reviews to Center for Scientific Review (CSR) and terminate about half of its review staff. This comes as there is already a building backlog from cancelled review meetings and layoffs. "We're already massively behind schedule," a review officer tells me.
#womeninSTEM #blackinNeuro #painresearch
Congrats to Dr. @goinsyeah.bsky.social for defending her thesis today 🎉🥂
BIG NEWS for @standupforscience.bsky.social New Mexico! The Governor of New Mexico officially signed a proclamation declaring Friday March 7th, 2025 as Stand Up For Science Day!! @govmlg.bsky.social I stand for science, New Mexico stands for science. I'd like to know, what do you stand for?
Yes, there is an injunction, but... "In an unprecedented move, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has begun mass terminations of research grants that fund active scientific projects because they no longer meet “agency priorities”. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Awesome! It's missing a couple of my favorites but I am so glad you made the list! I love listening to your funny science tales and creative pronunciations 🤣
Got to hang with the amazing @tedpricethepainguy.bsky.social today in NM! Talked some pain research and of course the terrible Luka trade! @goinsyeah.bsky.social
Though the cause of death has not been announced, this sounds like carbon monoxide. As I almost lost my life last year to carbon monoxide poisoning, this is a reminder to have alarms at home and travel with an alarm. This is a tragedy that can be prevented. My thoughts go out to their families 💔
In case anyone needs to understand what’s happening to science in the USA, this episode did a great summary!
I just reached out to my senators about the NIH situation. If you need to find out how much impact NIH has in your state in terms of dollars in and their economic impact here's a link: www.unitedformedicalresearch.org/nih-in-your-...
5,562 proteins were found to have tissue-specific enrichment across 32 human tissues. The majority of them (3,088) are enriched at the protein but not RNA level. The brain hosts the largest number of proteins that are only enriched at the protein level but not RNA level.
Many things to be concerned or upset about right now, but almost eradicating cervical cancer for kids growing up today is a huge win for the future.
Missed this initially, but it's anyways a good time to start the 2025 reading list! 🐭 #PainResearch pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
If you can even land one. Most of the grad students I went to school with are not even in the sciences anymore. And though I am a scientist, I don’t have a faculty position 13 years after receiving my PhD.
Totally worth a watch! Reading the book ‘Behave’ right now and this talk really highlighted that we have more control than we think #neuroskyence
241223_reply! Use this all the time in naming files so everything is in chronological order.
Song of the Cell, Behave
New publication alert from our lab! 🚨 Could circadian clock genes like BMAL1 and PER2 hold the key pain chronification? Read our latest review: BMAL1 and PER2: Mechanistic insights into osteoarthritis-associated pa... www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #ChronicPain #ClockGenes
I’ve written about my journey with chronic pain and why I’m so passionate about #PainResearch. Instead of letting pain define me, I’ve used it as fuel to drive my research and productivity. Read my story and join me in the mission to advance the understanding and treatment of chronic pain!
Very cool work on ER/PM junctions in neurons and how they regulate VGCCs. #neuroskyence
I was getting lived experience so I could choose a research path I am passionate about and understand the humans I am trying to help. Thanks chronic pain. #PainResearch #neuroskyence
@tedpricethepainguy.bsky.social @aliibarry.bsky.social @migrainecollab.bsky.social @psalmotoxin.bsky.social are some the top contributors with some of the most engagement (myself included)! Thanks for fun last couple months on BlueSky!
Check out my analysis of #PainResearch posts and engagement on BlueSky since the #Xodus in November 2024. Hoping as more scientists join the platform we can spark more interesting discussions and foster new collaborations. #neuroskyence
#neuroskyence #SciArt
Now that I have more followers I would love to add more artists to this starter pack! I have included several neuroscientists that are artists as well as artists that create neuro inspired art! All mediums are welcome! Podcasts, Visual Art, Authors, etc! Comment to be added and feel free to share!
What’s the point of getting people healthy if there is no financial incentive? In the for profit American medical system no cures will be developed if this is how we think of medicine.
Is capitalism completely antithetical to the public good or just mostly?
3/3 “Where an incident pool remains stable (eg, in cancer) the potential for a cure poses less risk to the sustainability of a franchise."
2/3 "In the case of infectious diseases such as hepatitis C, curing existing patients also decreases the number of carriers able to transmit the virus to new patients, thus the incident pool also declines ...”
1/3 "GILD is a case in point, where the success of its hepatitis C franchise has gradually exhausted the available pool of treatable patients," the analyst wrote.
I have more important things to worry about, like it’s 4:30 and I have yet to consume calories. Meaning 🤷♀️ lol
Who cares as long my protein is expressed and I can do my studies 🤣
Now come up with a punny Dr name. My was Doc Ness Monster. You have 2 years lol! 🤣
The #neuroscience behind art therapy reveals how creative expression naturally activates healing. It's not about talent – it's about engaging your brain's remarkable capacity for growth and adaptation through art-making. 🎨 🧠 #ArtTherapy #Healing arttherapywithnicole.substack.com/p/the-scienc...
Exciting news! Our latest preprint on neuroimmune mechanisms in a murine chronic back pain model is available. Congratulations to @goinsyeah.bsky.social on your first author publication! A big thanks to @alleslab.bsky.social and the entire team for their hard work! #neuroskyence #painresearch
Looks like all members of the @alleslab.bsky.social will be moving! Most of us to Cincy & one of us for a great postdoc opportunity elsewhere. Excited to see great things from each of you! 💪👩🔬🔬 #PainResearch @docnessmonster.bsky.social @goinsyeah.bsky.social @drjones26.bsky.social
New year, new notebooks! I designed these based on some images I took of some sensory neurons. Seemed like an appropriate lab holiday gift! #neuroskyence #PainResearch #SciArt
I am hoping my #neuroskyence network can help my friend! Many of you study ketamine therapy for mental health so you know how effective this treatment can be for PTSD. Anything helps!
Folic acid! From what I have seen up to 40% of people can’t turn it into folate (what the body needs), and it basically becomes a toxin. True or false? So given the new science why do we ‘enrich’ almost all flour with it? Btw love your podcast!
Also not an expert, just delving into ML and clustering algorithms. This episode really made me think about how much this and other algorithms just show you what you want to see if you play enough with the hyperparameters.
Thanks @plainenglishsci.bsky.social for the episode and the lively discussion this morning! Can't wait to hear more of your podcast!
I think what I got from the episode, is it's ok to use for trying to understand if 'clusters' exist, but the bottom line is real data needs to back up the UMAP. Additionally, be careful about what kind of data you use. RNA-seq may be a good use bc it exists on a manifold from low to high expression.
This paper used genetic labeling to show differences in firing patterns and RNA expression in different DRG neuron subtypes, so the subtypes do exist. Curious how a UMAP based on only RNA-seq can aid us in research or experimental design? We found it useful. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
In our preprint on donor specific effects of gabapentin on DRG neurons www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... We used a UMAP developed by @tedpricethepainguy.bsky.social and team in pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38905344/ to show broad expression of a2d1 in DRG neurons. Thoughts on this use case? #UMAP
Great episode and makes me question the use of this algorithm. I have personally used it and use online data repositories that use UMAPs. Wondering others thoughts on the utility? What is it good for and when should it be avoided? #MLinScience
Happy #FluorescenceFriday I love looking at all the connections neurons make! #neuroskyence #painresearch
'women leave academia overall at higher rates than men at every career age, in large part because of strongly gendered attrition... ...women leave or consider leaving because of workplace climate more often than work-life balance' New study: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #womenInStem #PalAss24
🤩 🤩 doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
If they should be able to run for office, they should also be able to vote.
Btw it does explain a dendrite earlier in the book.
I do recommend this book bc it really tries to put it simply. I can see how this would be confusing if you don’t know what a dendrite is. Another great book I recommend is ‘song of the cell.’ It’s the book I wish I had when I was young biology student!
One of the simplest explanations of our pain circuitry I have read. In ‘Behave’ by Robert Sapolsky. ‘An insect bite throbs unbearably, we scratch hard right around it to dull the pain, and the slow, chronic pain pathway is shut down for up to a few minutes’ #painresearch #neuroskyence
Check out my latest first author preprint on donor specific effects of gabapentin in human DRG neurons! Great time collaborating with the de la Pena lab! #neuroskyence #painresearch
@docnessmonster.bsky.social and I wrote a chapter for this on the role of CCK in nociception and pain! Pre-order your copy here if interested #PainResearch www.amazon.com/Cholecystoki...
#AnotherDayInParadise soaking these beach sunsets in while I can 🌅 #PuraVida
I hope to post a few more of these before I head back home 🌅
Interrupting your regularly scheduled programming with a sunset break #paradise #VacationMode #PuraVida
I study chronic pain bc chronic pain made me lose my career for many years. Also neuro-atypical (some of the many things that means). When I got the pain and the mental health under control, and found my calling, my productivity increased so much! #DisabledinSTEM
I honestly find Fiji great for most things. You may have increase the allowable memory in the settings, and they may take a while to open. I have opened 30GB files with Fiji before so it’s definitely doable.
Miss Virginia (2019): I am gonna do a science experiment for the talent contest. Coach: Here’s some batons, let try that. MV: No. Science is cool! C: Fine, Wear this! MV: No I am wearing safety goggles and a lab coat. C: ….. youtu.be/nvsEQiti51g?...
It’s the International Day to End Violence against Women and Girls! 1 in 3 girls and women around the world experience physical and/or sexual violence by: A husband A boyfriend An intimate partner A lover A parent A relative A colleague A boss A stranger bit.ly/3gy8pfq #NoExcuse
We need more #WomenInSTEM at levels beyond being a student. This graph clearly shows women are interested in STEM careers, but are not making it to to more senior levels. What can we do to remove barriers and bias blind spots to promote women scientists?