Faculty Profile:

Richard J. Traub, Ph.D.
Associate Professor

Department of Neural and Pain Sciences
Dental School

410-706-5117

rtraub@umaryland.edu

Research

The overall goal of my lab is to study how the spinal cord processes information about pain from visceral organs in healthy individuals and following injury or disease using animal models of visceral pain syndromes. We have two major projects underway. First, we are interested in the role of gonadal hormones underlying sex differences in pain arising from the descending colon. It is well known that women are more prone to irritable bowel syndrome than men and that symptoms of IBS fluctuate with the menstrual cycle. We are examining the role of specific gonadal hormones, estrogen and progesterone, on visceral sensitivity. We are examining how these hormones modulate synaptic function in the spinal cord, looking specifically at excitatory amino acids and their receptors.

Visceral organs, in contrast to somatic tissue, are innervated by afferents in two nerves that project to different regions of the brainstem/spinal cord. For example we know that acute lower gut pain is mediated by pelvic nerve input to the lumbosacral spinal cord. However, in patients with IBS or inflammatory bowel disease, there is an expansion of the area of referred pain suggesting additional processing of colonic input over the splanchnic nerves to the thoracolumbar spinal cord. We have shown that input over the pelvic nerve, in the absence of colonic inflammation, inhibits spinal processing of colonic input to the thoracolumbar spinal cord. This inhibition decreases when the colon is inflamed contributing to visceral hyperalgesia. We are examining the mechanisms that underlie this differential processing focusing on inhibitory transmitters and receptors within the spinal cord.

http://gpilsinside.umaryland.edu/Web%20files/Neuroscience/rtraub1.gif

Lab Techniques

Electrophysiology: extracellular recording, pharmacological manipulations; Neuroanatomy: immunocytochemistry, histochemistry, tract tracing; Behavioral pharmacology; Western blots; siRNA.

Publications

Al-Chaer, E.D. and Traub, R.J. Biological basis of visceral pain: Recent developments, Pain 96: 221-225, 2002.

Ji, Y., Murphy, A.Z. and Traub, R.J. Estrogen modulates the visceromotor reflex and responses of spinal dorsal horn neurons to colorectal stimulation in the rat. J. Neurosci., 23: 3908-3915, 2003.
Ji. Y., Tang, B. and Traub, R.J. The effects of estrogen and progesterone on behavioral and neuronal responses to colorectal distention following colonic inflammation in the rat. Pain 117: 433-442, 2005.

Wang, G., Tang, B. and Traub, R.J. Differential processing of noxious colonic input by thoracolumbar and lumbosacral dorsal horn neurons in the rat. J. Neurophysiol., 94:3788-3794, 2005.

Ji. Y., Murphy, A.Z. and Traub, R.J. Sex differences in morphine induced analgesia of visceral pain are supraspinally and peripherally mediated. Am. J. Physiology, 291: R307-314, 2006.

Ji. Y., Murphy, A.Z. and Traub, R.J. Estrogen modulation of morphine analgesia of visceral pain in female rats is supraspinally and peripherally mediated. J. Pain, 8: 494-502, 2007.

Wang, G., Tang, B. and Traub, R.J. Pelvic nerve modulation of thoracolumbar spinal neuron processing of colorectal input in the rat. Gastroenterology, 133:1544-1553, 2007.

Greenspan JD, Craft RM, Leresche L, Arendt-Nielsen L, Berkley KJ, Fillingim RB, Gold MS, Holdcroft A, Lautenbacher S, Mayer EA, Mogil JS, Murphy AZ, Traub RJ; the Consensus Working Group of the Sex, Gender, and Pain SIG of the IASP. Studying sex and gender differences in pain and analgesia: A consensus report. Pain, 132: S26-S45, 2007.

Tang, B., Ji, Y. and Traub, R.J. Estrogen alters spinal NMDA receptor activity via a PKA signaling pathway in a visceral pain model in the rat. Pain, 137:540-549, 2008.

Ji Y, Tang B, and Traub RJ. The visceromotor response to colorectal distention fluctuates with the estrous cycle in rats. Neuroscience 154:1562-7, 2008.

Traub, R.J., Tang, B., Ji, Y., Pandya, S., Yfantis, H. and Sun, Y. A Rat Model of Chronic Post-Inflammatory Visceral Pain Induced by Deoxycholic Acid, Gastroenterology, 135:2075-2083, 2008.

Renn, C.L., Lessans, S., McGuire, W.C., Smith, B.A., Traub, R.J. and Dorsey, S.G. Brain-derived Neurotrophic Factor Modulates Antiretroviral-induced Mechanical Allodynia in the Mouse. Under revision.

Wesselmann, U., Baranowski, A.P., Börjesson, M., Curran, N.C., Czakanski, P.P., Giamberardino, M.A., Ness, T.J., Robbins, M.T., Traub, R.J., Emerging therapies and novel approaches to visceral pain, Drug Discovery Today: Therapeutic Strategies, Special Edition on Pain; Section Editor; Raymond Dionne. 2008, In Press.

Murphy, A.Z., Suckow, S., Johns, M. and Traub, R.J. Sex Differences in the Activation of the Spinoparabrachial circuit by visceral pain. Physiology & Behavior, Under revision.

Personal History

I received my Ph.D. from the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, SUNY Stony Brook. I spent three years as a postdoctoral fellow at NIH and three more years at the University of Iowa. I was an Assistant Research Scientist at Iowa before joining the faculty of the University of Maryland Dental School in 1996.

Laboratory Personnel

Yaping Ji, Research Associate.
Sangeeta Pandya, Research assistant

Back to All Faculty

School of Medicine | Dental School | Graduate School | University of Maryland, Baltimore
Center of Marine Biotechnology (COMB) | Medical Biotechnology Center (MBC)

Please read the disclaimer concerning use of this University of Maryland School of Medicine site.

® University of Maryland School of Medicine, 655 W. Baltimore Street, Baltimore MD 21201
site maintained by moderntymes.com