Catherine Cahill
University of California-Los Angeles, CA·Neuroscience
People with chronic pain often also suffer depression and other negative emotional states. They are also more likely to develop opioid use disorder.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Pharmacology
Psychology
- Topics
chronic pain
opioid use disorder
opioid addiction
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Feb 2027
What they work on
- Determine whether the dynorphin–kappa opioid receptor system in the central amygdala is necessary and sufficient for negative reinforcement, meaning opioid taking to relieve a negative state, in mouse models of chronic pain.
- Test whether central amygdala dynorphin/KOR signaling is necessary and sufficient for reinstatement of opioid place preference, a relapse-like return to a place paired with the drug, in chronic pain states.
- Determine how much stress-induced relapse of intravenous opioid self-administration in mice with chronic pain is driven by the kappa opioid system in the central amygdala.
More about the research
Repeated opioid use blunts the brain's reward response, yet it strengthens drug seeking, partly by recruiting the brain's stress systems. One key stress system involves dynorphin, a natural brain chemical, and its target, the kappa opioid receptor (KOR). This system is active in the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA), an emotion-processing brain region. The lateral part of the CeA responds mainly to pain and has been called the 'nociceptive amygdala.' It also contains dynorphin neurons, and it is involved in both drug taking and pain-related aversion. This project asks how much this amygdala KOR system drives the increased drug seeking and relapse seen in chronic pain.
Why it matters
Prescription opioid misuse is high among people with chronic pain, and it is debated whether pain itself raises the risk of addiction. Clarifying how amygdala dynorphin and kappa opioid receptors drive relapse in pain states could support the development of KOR-blocking drugs as new treatments for opioid use disorder. This could especially help patients who live with chronic pain.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
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The school
University of California-Los Angeles: 84 labs on PI Pages, $1.9B a year on research, 803 research doctorates a year.
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