The Translational Research in Pain (TRiP) team’s mission is to improve pain management in animals and humans.

We achieve this through performing high quality, ethically sound, research in the following areas:

• Developing methods to measure the impact of pain in animals. Pain impacts multiple dimensions, such as function, sleep, cognition, emotions, sensitivity and quality of movement. We work collaboratively to develop methods to measure the impact of pain across these various dimensions. The diagram below (from Lascelels et al. 2019 [PMID: 31383423 ]) illustrates the multiple dimensions that are impacted by chronic pain. Not all dimensions are impacted equally in each individual, which is part of what makes the ‘pain experience’ unique to each individual person and animal.

• Unraveling the neurobiological signature of pain in naturally occurring chronic disease in animals. The mechanisms driving pain vary from condition to condition. We are interested in what the important mechanisms are in naturally occurring painful states, such as osteoarthritis in cats and dogs. Leveraging our ability to define the impact of pain in individual animals, we can analyze tissues and biological fluids to gain insight into the clinically important drivers of pain.

• Testing novel therapeutics for pain relief in naturally occurring disease in animals. Pet cats and dogs are considered excellent, naturally occurring models of human disease conditions when they suffer from the sort of painful conditions humans suffer from. Assessing drug, biological, supplements, diets, social factors etc. as modulators of pain in pet animals can not only help inform human pain control, but advances our ability to alleviate pain in our companion pets!