Combinaison de l'imagerie fUS et de manipulations optogénétiques pour l'étude du connectome de la douleur et ses altérations dans deux modèles animaux de douleur persistante.

Combination of fUS imaging and optogenetics manipulation in order to study the pain network and his alterations in two types of persistent pain models.

• Auteur / Autrice : Silvia Cazzanelli
• Direction : Sophie Pezet
• Type : Projet de thèse
• Discipline(s) : Neurosciences
• Date : Inscription en doctorat le 02/01/2021
• Etablissement(s) : Université Paris sciences et lettres
• Ecole(s) doctorale(s) : École doctorale Cerveau, cognition, comportement
• Partenaire(s) de recherche : Laboratoire : Physique pour la Médecine
• Partenaire(s) de recherche : établissement opérateur d'inscription : Ecole supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles de la Ville de Paris (1882-....)

Mots clés

Mots clés libres

Connectome de la douleur

Optogénétique

Imagerie fUS

Optogenetics

FUS imaging

Pain network

Résumé

The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage. Pain has been categorized in two different types: acute pain, which has a protective physiological role, alerting the body to harmful stimuli; and chronic pain, which is a debilitating disease. It's been hypothesized that chronic pain is due to abnormal neuronal plasticity in the structures known to be involved in pain perception. In order to better understand the mechanisms and the brain regions involved in pain chronification in this project we will compare naïve mice and mice suffering from chronic pain in order to find some differences in the strength of connections (=connectome) of brain areas known to constitute the ‘pain matrix'. We will prove our hypothesis by imaging the pain connectome in resting naïve mice and its alterations in two models of chronic pain. Then we will also study the functional consequences of optogenetic activation or inhibition of neurons in the areas of the pain matrix. Functional ultrasound imaging (fUS) is a relatively new and versatile neuroimaging approach developed in collaboration by INSERM and Iconeus. Using a relatively small configuration, it allows to image and measure cerebral blood flow in anesthetized and awake rodents with excellent spatial (100 μm) and temporal (1 ms) resolution and high sensitivity. With this imaging technique we will evaluate the functional connections between selected brain regions by the study of Functional Connectivity which is known to be an indicator of brain plasticity.