Pain – mechanisms and management
Type of class Seminar
Offered by Medical Neurosciences
Instructor Halina Machelska
Schedule 3 hrs per week, both semesters; day and time to be chosen by students
Contact Halina Machelska ()
Target audience MSc and PhD students
ECTS points 3
Course material
Course description
The course addresses basic as well as unconventional aspects of pain and its treatment. It covers multiple pain aspects such as anatomy, physiology and pharmacology of sensory nervous system, physiology and pathology of acute and chronic pain, endogenous pain modulation, genetics of pain, sex/gender differences in pain and its inhibition, current and novel pain therapies, and ethical guidelines of studies in animals and humans. The course is based on lectures, article analyses and practical demonstrations of pain testing in mice and rats and electrophysiological methods. It involves active student participation. There will be also visits to Pain Clinic and participation in pain patient conferences.
Course structure
Each class is organized in two parts with one break (15 min). Each part consists of the following:
– introductory presentation by myself: this is interactive with questions asked by students
– Presentation (15–20 min) of the manuscript (prepared at home) by a student
– Discussion of the manuscript with participation of all students:
This includes critical analysis of the suitability of the information provided in the Introduction and analyzed in the Discussion, validity of the methods and assessment of the results (statistical significance versus functional/clinical relevance).
Learning outcome
The major goals are: a) To address physiological and pathological aspects of pain; b) To see pain as a disease and not only as a symptom; c) To be able to present articles in a concise way to other students/teachers and gain skills in giving talks; d) To objectively analyze manuscripts as to the methods, statistics, relevance of the data, the quality of the introduction and discussion; and e) To be constructive in your criticism by suggesting options for improvement.