Pain – mechanisms and management 2011/2012
Type of class Seminar incorporating journal club
Offered by Medical Neurosciences
Instructor Halina Machelska
Schedule January – March, 2012. First organizational meeting: Friday January 6, 2012, 10:00 am (to decide on day and time)
Location Klinik für Anaesthesiologie, Charité, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Hindenburgdamm 30 (room nr. to be announced)
Contact Halina Machelska ()
Target audience MSc and PhD, open to other programs
ECTS points 3
Learning Outcome
The seminar addresses basic as well as unconventional aspects of pain and its treatment. It covers multiple pain aspects such as anatomy, physiology and pharmacology of sensory nervous system, physiology and pathology of acute and chronic pain (inflammatory, cancer, neuropathic i.e. phantom pain and other types resulting from nerve injuries), endogenous pain inhibition, genetics of pain, sex/gender differences in pain and its inhibition, current and novel pain therapies, and ethical guidelines of studies in animals and humans. The course is based on lectures, article analyses and practical demonstrations of pain testing in mice and rats, and electrophysiological methods. It involves active student participation.
The major goals are:
- To understand physiological and pathological aspects of pain
- To see pain as a disease and not only as a symptom
- To be able to present articles in a concise way to other students/teachers and gain skills in giving talks
- To objectively analyze manuscripts as to the methods, statistics, relevance of the data, the quality of the introduction and discussion
- To be constructive in your criticism by suggesting options for improvement.
Structure
- Introductory presentation by myself: this is interactive with questions asked by students
- Presentation (Power Point; 15–20 min) of the manuscript (prepared at home) by a student
- Discussion of the manuscript with participation of all students: This includes critical analysis of the suitability of the information provided in the Introduction and analyzed in the Discussion, validity of the methods and assessment of the results (statistical significance versus functional/clinical relevance).
- For interested and (at least) understanding German participation in pain patient conferences can be arranged (extra time).
Readings
Topic-related papers (1–2 weekly, announced a week in advance)