Dr. Matilde Cordero-erausquin

Biography

Dr. Matilde Cordero-Erausquin Department of Nociception and Pain – The European Neuroscience Institute at Strasbourg

Research Interest

Chronic pain is a devastating and widespread problem yet the existing treatments have limited long-term efficacy. Our research focuses on spinal cholinergic analgesia as a source of alternative therapy.  Spinal acetylcholine (ACh) is an important modulator of sensory processing, also implicated in the analgesic effects of clonidine and morphine. Our latest results have demonstrated that this ACh arises from a sparse population of dorsal horn cholinergic interneurons. Understanding how such a sparse population achieves a major control of nociceptive processing is an ambitious challenge that we address using a combination of neuroanatomy, behavioural experiments, electrophysiology and optogenetics. By analogy with other populations of exceedingly rare but intensely connected neurons that serve as hubs or orchestral directors for large networks, our working hypothesis is that a unique positioning within the spinal network makes cholinergic neurons a keystone of sensory processing.  Our specific aims are to identify (i) the stimuli that trigger the release of ACh, (ii) the neurons that are pre- and postsynaptic to cholinergic interneurons, and (iii) the consequences of the stimulation of these neurons on the spinal sensory network.  The cholinergic modulation of nociceptive stimuli being deficient in a mouse model of chronic neuropathic pain, we will test the hypothesis that it is due to a functional uncoupling of cholinergic neurons from sensory fibers.