Reciprocal Interactions Between Pain and Cognition: Role of the Endocannabinoid System

This presentation will focus largely on rodent studies of reciprocal pain-cognition interactions, and how they have informed our understanding of the underlying neurobiological sites and mechanisms, with a particular emphasis on the endocannabinoid system. Dr. Finn will present an overview of studies demonstrating altered cognition-related behaviour in rodent models of pain, and also how cognition-related phenomena such as distraction and fear-learning modulate nociceptive behaviour in rodents. He will present evidence for a role of the endocannabinoid system in pain-cognition interactions, and further expand on related signalling systems and brain circuitry that may be involved.