Instructors: Dr. Brings and Dr. McCall

In this class, we will present an introduction into symptoms of acute and chronic pain and substance use disorders, and we will demonstrate how to model these symptoms in preclinical rodent models. Students will learn about animal models of inflammatory, neuropathic, and visceral injuries and methods to assess pain, including evoked and non-evoked nociceptive tests and assays for measuring spontaneous pain and affective
pain. (Students will also learn about animal models of substance use disorders and methods to assess drug-induced reward, motivation, and dependence phenotypes.)

Additionally, we will discuss how to design experiments using these methods and how to interpret the data produced. This class will focus on approaches used in our departments to help students better understand and engage with the research they’ll be exposed to this summer.