The Impact Of The Inhibitory Neuromodulator Agmatine On Microglia Function In The Contexts Of Pain And Addiction
Chronic pain is a national health crisis. The gold standard treatment for chronic pain are opioids, which can be effective at managing pain symptoms in the short-term. However, long-term use of opioids can lead to analgesic tolerance, dependence, uncontrolled opioid use, and overdose. The impact of this crisis, and the related opioid epidemic, is especially felt in the exponential increase in opioid-related overdose deaths over the last decade. Moreover, chronic pain patients have been left with few safe resources to control their pain. The opioid epidemic and the ongoing chronic pain crisis highlight the urgent need for the development of novel, non-opioid, therapeutics to treat these diseases. The work presented in this dissertation aims to contribute to this solution through the evaluation of mechanistic properties of agmatine, an inhibitory neuromodulator in therapeutic development for chronic pain and opioid use disorder.
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