Professor Amynah Pradhan PhD

Professor Amynah Pradhan is a Neuroscientist who has studied chronic pain for over 15 years. Her current research focuses on the development of translationally significant animal models of headache. She is a member of the first group to develop a novel pre-clinical model of chronic migraine, which we used to identify the delta opioid receptor as a novel therapeutic target for this disorder. A major goal of her lab is to understand how delta opioid receptors modulate migraine, and she is especially interested in how this receptor regulates CGRP. The lab is also developing a novel model of post-traumatic headache; and we are exploring the role of CGRP in increased susceptibility to this condition.

A further aim of her work is to identify the molecular mechanisms that contribute to the chronification of migraine, as well as overlapping mechanisms between chronic migraine and psychiatric disorders. She has extensive expertise in animal models of migraine, pain, addiction, and emotional disorders; as well as significant experience with mutant mouse models. Professor Amynah Pradhan also routinely performs tissue analysis using confocal microscopy, molecular biology, and protein analysis.

She is interested in translating results from animal behavioral models to clinical applications, particularly for the treatment of headache disorders.