NEUROLOGICAL DISEASES, NEUROSCIENCE & MENTAL HEALTH

Molecular Neuropharmacology

Main lines of research

Chronic pain is an important clinical problem due to the low efficacy of conventional treatments and their numerous side effects.

Chronic pain is also accompanied by affective disorders such as depression, anxiety and memory deficits, which exert a negative influence on the perception of pain, creating a vicious circle that contributes to the impairment in the quality of life of patients.

At present, the treatment of chronic pain and the linked emotional disorders is a major challenge.

Our main objective is to find new treatments that effectively relieve chronic pain and the associated comorbidities by using pharmacological, molecular and genetic techniques.

Main research lines:

  • New strategies for the treatment of chronic pain. To identify new drugs capable of alleviating inflammatory, osteoarthritis, and/or neuropathic pain in different preclinical pain models and to investigate the precise mechanisms underlying their effects.
  • New therapies for the emotional disorders associated with chronic pain. To investigate the role played by different gaseous neurotransmitters in the modulation of anxiety- and depressive-like behaviors and/or the cognitive deficits accompanying persistent chronic pain.
  • Neuropharmacology of opioids and cannabinoids. To establish new strategies to potentate the analgesic effects of opioids and cannabinoids during chronic pain, avoiding the development of side effects that result from the administration of high and/or continued doses of these drugs.
  • New stratagems for the treatment of diabetic neuropathy. To identify new approaches to inhibit oxidative stress and neuropathy, two of the major complications associated with diabetes, by evaluating the therapeutic action of specific molecules in different preclinical models of diabetes.

Challenges

  • To identify new pharmacological compounds that effectively abolish chronic pain with few side effects and for wich their use can be transfered to clinical practice and/or be patentable. To evaluate the analgesic, antidepressant and/or anxiolytic effects of hydrogen sulfide donors in animals with chronic pain; the mechanism of action of these compounds in specific areas of the central and peripheral nervous systems; and their effects on the functional disability linked with chronic osteoarthritis pain.
  • Oxidative stress is one of the principal mechanisms involved in the development and maintenance of chronic pain. To identify new antioxidant compounds as potential therapeutic targets and to evaluate their effects on proinflammatory signals and plasticity changes provoked by nerve injuries, chemotherapeutic agents or metabolic disorders.
  • To evaluate the neurotrophic and antioxidant mechanisms implicated in the modulation of inflammatory pain in the central nervous system and to study the role played by the activation of the heme oxygenase 1/carbon monoxide signaling pathway in pain aversion.
  • To advance the knowledge of the molecular mechanisms involved in the analgesic effects of opioids and cannabinoids. To enhance the analgesic actions of μ- and δ-opioid receptor agonists and cannabinoid 2 receptor agonists in chronic pain through their coadministration with specific activators of gaseous neurotransmitters.

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