Originally published by Education News Canada on October 1, 2020
Prion disease, opioid withdrawal, and how the brain enables limb movement are three areas of biomedical research recently awarded grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), totalling $2.6 million in funding.
The CIHR Project Grant program chose projects led by Drs. Sabine Gilch, PhD, Tuan Trang, PhD, and Patrick Whelan, PhD, all researchers in the University of Calgary Faculty of Veterinary Medicine (UCVM).
The opium poppy is a natural source of opioids such as morphine. Although they are revered for their potent pain-relieving effects, when used chronically, opioids can lead to analgesic tolerance, hyperalgesia and withdrawal. Burma et al. (p 355) Read more…
Opioids are the mainstay of treatment strategies to reduce pain, but withdrawal can be a serious problem when patients stop taking these drugs. However, beyond the recognition that microglia play a role in this phenomenon, little is known about the cellular mechanisms involved. Now, new research shows how microglia contribute to withdrawal in rodents and identifies a potential path toward easing withdrawal in patients.
The Canadian Association for Neuroscience (CAN) is proud to announce that Tuan Trang, from the Hotchkiss Brain Institute at the University of Calgary, will receive a 2017 CAN Young Investigator Award at the upcoming 11th Annual Canadian Neuroscience Meeting in Montréal, on May 30th 2017.
