James L. McGaugh Distinguished Seminar Series

Tuesday, February 25, 2025 at 11:00am

The seminar will be In-Person.

John Bethea, Ph.D.

King Fahd II Professor and Chair of Anatomy & Cell Biology, The George Washington University 

“Mechanisms and therapies for chronic pain and its comorbidities.”

Abstract: According to the World Health Organization, chronic pain affects approximately 20-25% of the world’s population. In humans, chronic pain is defined as “pain” that persists and is non-remitting for 3 months or longer. Chronic pain results from disease and or injury and can take on many different clinical manifestations such as Neuropathic, Musculo Skeletal or Visceral, for example. Mechanistically, chronic pain has been linked to pathological inflammation and maladaptive neuro plasticity. Finally, there are no effective therapies to alleviate chronic pain and those that do work are more effective in men than women.

With respect to our pain program, my laboratory has three primary objectives: 1) Elucidate mechanisms of chronic pain in females and males; 2) Investigate therapies that are effective in both women and men; and 3) Better understand the intersection between chronic pain and chronic disease.

In my lecture, I will discuss recent work from our group investigating the dichotomy between TNFR1 and TNFR2 signaling in chronic pain and chronic diseases such Parkinson’s disease and Heart Failure.