Grant: Project Grant

Chronic pain is a common feature of nearly every autoimmune disease. Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is one example of an autoimmune disease in which chronic pain is a significant burden for people with the disease. The prevalence of autoimmune disease in general is increasing worldwide and more specifically, Canada has some of the highest rates of MS in the world. Autoimmune diseases disproportionately affect women more than men although pain is reported in both sexes. Recent experimental evidence, however, has revealed that the pathways generating pain can be distinct between men and women. In this project grant, our overall goal is to better define how pain is generated between the sexes in autoimmune disease. With this insight, we hope to be able to develop more targeted pain relief therapies that are tailored in a sex-dependent manner to achieve better pain management for those suffering from diseases like MS. To understand pain in autoimmune disease our studies will focus on a mouse model of MS as it is well established in the field and generates a robust pain phenotype with sex specific features. We will conduct experiments that will determine if sex differences in pain generation are dependent on different sex hormones or the chromosomes in the disease. We will then use specific mouse lines in which key elements of the inflammatory pathways activated in autoimmune disease are removed from sensory neurons to better define the pathways used by males and females for pain in this mouse model of MS. Finally, we will examine differences in structural and functional plasticity between the sexes and examine how different treatments affect these measures and their impact on pain.