Robert Danaher, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department: Oral Health Practice
- Office:160 HSRB
Lexington, Kentucky 40536 - Phone:323-5751
- Other Phone:
- Email:rjdana0@uky.edu
- We have previously demonstrated that chronic treatment with histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi) permanently reverses orofacial pain in a mouse model of orofacial neuropathic pain. The goals of the current project are to 1) define the minimal "window of opportunity" of HDACi treatment sufficient to attenuate pain, 2) establish an operant behavior test to compliment and corroborate classical “reflex” tests that assess pain-related behavior and 3) to identify genes expressed in the spinal trigeminal nucleus caudalis that are involved in the development, maintenance and HDACi mediated resolution of orofacial neuropathic pain using RNA-sequencing technology.
- The specific aims of this project are to 1) Test the hypothesis that chronic orofacial neuropathic pain is associated with altered miRNA expression within central nervous system and 2) Test the hypothesis that massage therapy will attenuate orofacial neuropathic pain and modulate miRNA expression, potentially through the delivery of miRNAs in exosomes released from muscle.