Central neuropathic pain of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). MS is an autoimmune disease of the CNS associated with demyelination and inflammation as well as motor, sensory, and cognitive deficits. Neuropathic pain is a common comorbidity in MS affecting over half of people living with the disease. Current treatments for MS were designed to delay motor symptom progression, but have not limited MS-associated neuropathic pain, for which underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. The pathophysiology of MS includes microglial activation that is recapitulated in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) mouse models of MS. The Taylor laboratory is using pharmacology and cre transgenics in EAE to test the hypothesis that central lesions associated with MS cause changes that signal the initiation and maintenance of neuropathic allodynia: 1) microglia in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord that can be targeted with drugs acting at the sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor 1; and 2) low threshold mechanoreceptors and thermosensors in primary afferent neurons.
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