Diane
03-10-2006, 12:35 AM
I tuned in to www.painonline.com to find the latest blog (http://www.painonline.com/mt-archives/2006/09/digging_deep_fo.html#more) to be about a researcher named Carl Saab (among other things, but the bit about Saab caught my eye).
(A Nobel prize-winner in particle physics) advised all the bright young minds who wanted to be another Einstein to go into brain science instead, where the work had not begun. He promised publication in major journals within a year of completing school, so sparse were the experiments which had then been performed. His prediction proved to be "right on the money". It is common to see PhD candidates publishing breakthrough articles when they are still in training.
A good example was the astounding discovery by Carl Saab while still in school, that the cerebellum is involved in pain inhibition. (Dr. Saab, now at Brown, is one of the authors at painonline). Predictably the old time religion medical hardliners howled with outrage when the young student presented the MRI findings which unmistakeably showed the motor area, the cerebellum, suppressing nerve injury pain. The idea was preposterous, out of step with existing theory, and most of all came from a nobody.
The thing is that Dr. Saab was proven out. The paper was just one blow against the huge oak door of pain ignorance which has still only opened partially. To his credit, painonline's founder, Patrick Wall, then President of the International Association for the Study of Pain, openly embraced the findings of Dr. Saab. This cost the revered Dr. Wall some of his closest friends in academia, who could not tolerate the heresy, however true it has since been shown to be.
I dug up some things Saab has written (http://lib.bioinfo.pl/auth:Saab,CY), dating from 1999 to just last month. I'm a little confused right now, because this paper by him (http://jn.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/85/6/2359) in 2001 suggests an opposite effect. Cerebellar Cortical Stimulation Increases Spinal Visceral Nociceptive Responses. J. Neurophysiol. 85: 2359-2363, 2001. The role of the cerebellum in modulating nociceptive phenomena is unclear. In this study, we focus on the effects of cerebellar cortical stimulation on the responses of midline neurons of the lumbosacral spinal cord to graded nonnoxious and noxious visceral (colorectal distension) as well as somatic (brush, pressure, pinch) stimuli. Extracellular recording was used for the isolation and recording of spinal nociceptive neurons, while electrical current pulses and chemical injection of D, L-homocysteic acid were used to stimulate the cortex of the posterior cerebellar vermis. Cerebellar cortical stimulation increased the responses of all isolated cells to colorectal distension, whereas the effect on the responses to somatic stimuli was variable. These findings indicate that the posterior cerebellar vermis may exert a pro-nociceptive effect on spinal visceroceptive neurons. I will need to read more of these, more closely.
Here are a few more links to Kevin McHenry's blog, that refer to Saab by name:
1. The Neuro-Immune Synapse (http://www.painonline.com/mt-archives/2006/02/the_neuroimmune.html)
2. The Holy Grail and the Myth of the Bulletproof Soldier (http://www.painonline.com/mt-archives/2004/07/the_holy_grail.html).
Surely this pertains to non-conscious, ideomotor movement.
(A Nobel prize-winner in particle physics) advised all the bright young minds who wanted to be another Einstein to go into brain science instead, where the work had not begun. He promised publication in major journals within a year of completing school, so sparse were the experiments which had then been performed. His prediction proved to be "right on the money". It is common to see PhD candidates publishing breakthrough articles when they are still in training.
A good example was the astounding discovery by Carl Saab while still in school, that the cerebellum is involved in pain inhibition. (Dr. Saab, now at Brown, is one of the authors at painonline). Predictably the old time religion medical hardliners howled with outrage when the young student presented the MRI findings which unmistakeably showed the motor area, the cerebellum, suppressing nerve injury pain. The idea was preposterous, out of step with existing theory, and most of all came from a nobody.
The thing is that Dr. Saab was proven out. The paper was just one blow against the huge oak door of pain ignorance which has still only opened partially. To his credit, painonline's founder, Patrick Wall, then President of the International Association for the Study of Pain, openly embraced the findings of Dr. Saab. This cost the revered Dr. Wall some of his closest friends in academia, who could not tolerate the heresy, however true it has since been shown to be.
I dug up some things Saab has written (http://lib.bioinfo.pl/auth:Saab,CY), dating from 1999 to just last month. I'm a little confused right now, because this paper by him (http://jn.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/85/6/2359) in 2001 suggests an opposite effect. Cerebellar Cortical Stimulation Increases Spinal Visceral Nociceptive Responses. J. Neurophysiol. 85: 2359-2363, 2001. The role of the cerebellum in modulating nociceptive phenomena is unclear. In this study, we focus on the effects of cerebellar cortical stimulation on the responses of midline neurons of the lumbosacral spinal cord to graded nonnoxious and noxious visceral (colorectal distension) as well as somatic (brush, pressure, pinch) stimuli. Extracellular recording was used for the isolation and recording of spinal nociceptive neurons, while electrical current pulses and chemical injection of D, L-homocysteic acid were used to stimulate the cortex of the posterior cerebellar vermis. Cerebellar cortical stimulation increased the responses of all isolated cells to colorectal distension, whereas the effect on the responses to somatic stimuli was variable. These findings indicate that the posterior cerebellar vermis may exert a pro-nociceptive effect on spinal visceroceptive neurons. I will need to read more of these, more closely.
Here are a few more links to Kevin McHenry's blog, that refer to Saab by name:
1. The Neuro-Immune Synapse (http://www.painonline.com/mt-archives/2006/02/the_neuroimmune.html)
2. The Holy Grail and the Myth of the Bulletproof Soldier (http://www.painonline.com/mt-archives/2004/07/the_holy_grail.html).
Surely this pertains to non-conscious, ideomotor movement.