A debilitating neurological disorder characterized by recurrent episodes of unilateral, pulsating pain that lasts 4-72 hours with at least one of the following symptoms:

  • Increased sensitivity to noise, light, and odors
  • Vomiting
  • Nausea
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Migraine headache is one of the most debilitating disorders in the world and treatments are insufficient. My laboratory studies the neurocircuitry underlying migraine and post-traumatic headache. Our preclinical laboratory focuses heavily on the sensory abnormalities associated with migraine and post-traumatic headache, including photophobia, spontaneous pain and touch hypersensitivity. Our lab’s research uses functional MRI, optogenetic and DREADD approaches to better understand the circuits contributing to those sensory abnormalities. We recently identified the deep cerebellar nuclei as possible sensory integration centers underlying sensory abnormalities in migraine. We are a VA associated lab and part of the VA Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Visual Loss with a special emphasis on Veteran related problems in headache. Post-traumatic headache is similar to migraine and affects about 50% of Veterans who saw combat in war zones. Our hope is to one day identify brain regions that can be manipulated in humans to treat headache. Our promotion of a multi-disciplinary and collaborative approach to tackle these important questions in headache medicine offers trainees room to grow and become wonderful independent scientists.

Cerebellar vermis

Fastigial nucleus

1 nestin-hRAMP1 (-) rbGFP projections

cb CGRP and clbindin

An Automated Squint Method for Time-syncing Behavior and Brain Dynamics in Mouse Pain Studies

Monday, November 18, 2024
Nathan McCutcheon
Spontaneous pain has been challenging to track in real time and quantify in a way that prevents human bias. This is especially true for metrics of head pain, as in disorders such as migraine. Eye squint has emerged as a continuous variable metric that can be measured over time and is effective for predicting pain states in such assays. This paper provides a protocol for the use of DeepLabCut (DLC) to automate and quantify eye squint (Euclidean distance between eyelids) in restrained mice with...