Everyone is invited...

Hosted by the Division of Neurodegenerative Disorders at St. Boniface Hospital Research Invited Speaker: Dr. Sean Mulligan

Friday, February 17th, 2012

12:00 - 1:00 p.m. Physiology Conference Room

431 BMSB Bannatyne Campus

Dr. Sean Mulligan Assistant Professor, Department of Physiology, University of Saskatchewan

Topic: Functional Optical Imaging in Free Nerve Endings: A Pain in the Dura.

Research Interests: Pain sensitivity within the skull is restricted to the intracranial meninges, the system of membranes that envelops the brain. Afferent thinly myelinated A -fibres and unmyelin-ated C-fibres that originate from the trigeminal ganglion densely innervate the meninges, in particular the cranial dura mater. It is widely recognized that activation or sensitization of these dural nociceptive afferents is responsible for the genesis of migraine headaches. However, any details of the pathophysiological mecha-nisms involved are largely speculative and remain to be discovered. Identification of the underlying mechanisms of activation of dural nociceptors may have important implications for understanding and mitigating the pathogenesis of migraine headaches. We have developed a novel en bloc dural-skull preparation that allows us for the first time to apply optical imaging techniques to directly study with high resolution the free nerve endings and terminals of the nociceptive fibres that terminate in the dura mater. The objective of our research is to gain insight into the neurophysiol-ogy of peripheral pain activation to better understand the patho-physiological processes that occur during migraine headache. It is our hope that this will lead to new peripheral drug targets and offer additional therapeutic treatments for this devastating illness. detection.

Kelly Jorundson Winnipeg Chapter Society for Neuroscience R4046 - 351 Tache Avenue Winnipeg, MB R2H 2A6 T: 204.235.3939 F: 204.237.4092 website: www.sfn-manitoba.ca