Personal details |
Name |
Professor Sally
Lawson |
Job title |
Emeritus Professor
|
Department |
School of Physiology, Pharmacology & Neuroscience University of Bristol
|
Contact details |
This expert can be contacted via the University of Bristol Public Relations
Office.
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when contacting the Public Relations Office.
work+44 (0)117 331 8092
email: public-relations@bristol.ac.uk
|
Qualifications |
B.Sc., Ph.D.(Bristol) |
Professional details |
Membership of professional bodies |
The Physiological Society (UK) The Society for Neuroscience (USA) The British Society for Neuroscience The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP)
|
Keywords |
pain
chronic pain
spontaneous pain
primary afferent neurons
sensory nerve cells
sensory nervous system
electrophysiology
immunocytochemistry
|
Areas of expertise |
I have studied the sensory nervous system, that is the first nerve cells that carry information towards the brain about non-painful or painful stimuli.
More recently my group has focussed specifically on the properties of the pain nerve cells (those that respond only to painful stimuli). Because of the clinical need for better treatments for chronic pain, we are focussing on the changes in these pain nerve cells that contribute to chronic pain. That is the changes that a) make the nerve cells more sensitive, or b) make them fire (send action potentials) spontaneously (without any obvious stimulus), as the causes of this are very poorly understood.
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