Pharmacology of Analgesics.

Catalog description

Semester course; 3 lecture hours. 3 credits. Prerequisites: PHTX 630 and PHTX 636 or permission of the instructor. The course will be divided into three sections. In the first, students will review methods for measurement of pain and analgesia in humans and animals and describe the implications of these measures for translational pain research. In the second section, students will review the neurobiology of pain, with a focus on neural systems that mediate sensory and affective dimensions of pain and their modulation by endogenous pain inhibitory systems. In the final section, students will review the pharmacology of existing classes of drugs and the research strategies for evaluation of new candidate analgesics. Throughout the class, readings and discussions will consider both seminal literature and recent research papers.