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Role Of Microglial Α7 Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor Positive Allosteric Modulator In Neuroinflammatory Pain Models In Mice, Muzaffar Abbas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Neuroinflammatory pain affects about 1.5% of the United States population. Around 20-40% patients having neurological disorders are affected with neuroinflammatory pain. As a part of the limbic system, hippocampus is known to play a critical role in pain perception and processing, and is densely populated with microglial cells and α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs). Given the role of microglial α7 nAChRs in neuroinflammation, the α7 nAChRs have emerged as potential target for neuroinflammatory pain treatment. We hypothesized that microglial α7 nAChRs positive allosteric modulation in the hippocampus will decrease neuroinflammatory pain at behavioral, cellular, biochemical, and molecular level. The primary …