Pharmacology & Therapeutics
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Welcome to the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at NUI Galway. This Department was established in 1974. We are primarily affiliated with the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, but also play an active role in the Science Faculty. At present, the Department has six academic staff members, four technical staff and two administrative assistants. We are involved in the delivery of undergraduate teaching to medical, nursing and science students and to postgraduate teaching in a taught Masters in Neuropharmocology and many students are also gaining their PhDs through research in our Department. The Department is spread across three locations on the NUI Galway campus. Offices and teaching areas are located inside the Newcastle Road gate, teaching and research laboratories are off Distillery Road and Clinical Pharmacology research takes place in the Clinical Science Institute on the grounds of University College Hospital Galway.
Pharmacology is a field of study that seeks to understand how chemical substances in the environment, such as drugs, interact with the body. Substances that are found in the environment other than drugs, for example poisons and toxins are also studied by pharmacologists to try to understand how those substances can harm the body. Pharmacology as a discipline has been in existence for approximately the past 100 years, having developed out of the closely related disciplines of physiology and chemistry. In the past, most drugs were isolated from plants, but most new drugs nowadays are synthesised in the laboratory.
Pharmacologists study all aspects of how drugs affect living organisms with the objective of understanding disease better, developing new drugs to treat diseases, and ensuring the safest and best use of existing drugs. In this way, pharmacology can be thought of as spanning a spectrum of activity all the way from the discovery of new drug targets, the development of new drugs, and the regulation and safe use of medicines.
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Validation of an air-puff passive-avoidance paradigm for assessment of aversive learning and memory in rat models of chronic pain
(2012)Chronic pain is associated with cognitive deficits. Considerable overlap in brain regions involved in pain and aversion suggests that aversive learning and memory may be affected during chronic pain. Passive-avoidance ... -
6-iodonordihydrocapsaicin
(2009)6-Iodonordihydrocapsaicin was first synthesized by Giovanni Appendino at the Department of Chemical, Food, Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological Sciences (DiSCAFF), Novara, Italy, while developing a series of halogenated ... -
The endocannabinoid system and emotional processing: pathophysiology and therapeutic potential.
(SAGE, 2012-01)Although the pharmacological and medicinal properties of the plant Cannabis sativa have long been known and appreciated, the discovery of the endocannabinoid system began with the isolation of [delta]9-tetrahydrocannabinol ... -
Pharmacological inhibition of monoacylglycerol lipase attenuates LPS-induced increases in cytokine expression in the rat frontal cortex and plasma: differential mechanisms of action
(2013)Background and purpose: This study determined the effect of JZL184, a selective inhibitor of monoacylglycerol lipase (MAGL), the enzyme which preferentially catabolises the endocannabinoid 2-arachidonoyl glycerol (2-AG), ... -
Brain CB2 receptors: Implication for Neuropsychiatric disorders
(2010)Although previously thought of as the peripheral cannabinoid receptor, it is now accepted that the CB2 receptor is expressed in the central nervous system on microglia, astrocytes and subpopulations of neurons. Expression ... -
Chronic fluoxetine treatment attenuates stressor-induced changes in temperature, heart rate, and neuronal activation in the olfactory bulbectomised rat
(2007)The olfactory bulbectomized (OB) rat is a well characterized animal model that exhibits a number of behavioural and neurochemical changes that have relevance to clinical depression. Hyperactivity in the open field is the ... -
Enhanced nociceptive responding in two rat models of depression is associated with alterations in monoamine levels in discrete brain regions
(2010)Altered pain responding in depression is a widely recognized but poorly understood phenomenon The present study investigated nociceptive responding to acute (thermal and mechanical) and persistent (inflammatory) noxious ... -
Behavioural, neurochemical and neuroendocrine effects of the endogenous beta-carboline harmane in fear-conditioned rats
(2012)The putative endogenous imidazoline binding site ligand harmane enhances neuronal activation in response to psychological stress and alters behaviour in animal models of anxiety and antidepressant efficacy. However, the ... -
The effect of pain on cognitive function: a review of clinical and preclinical research.
(2011)Cognitive impairment is commonly associated with the pain experience. This impairment represents a major obstacle to daily activities and rehabilitation, especially in the chronic pain population. Here we review clinical ... -
Pharmacological inhibition of endocannabinoid degradation modulates the expression of inflammatory mediators in the hypothalamus following an immunological stressor
(Elsevier, 2011-09)The endocannabinoid system is an important regulator of the nervous, neuroendocrine, and immune systems, thus representing a novel therapeutic target for stress-related neuroinflammatory and psychiatric disorders. However, ... -
Validation of an air-puff passive-avoidance paradigm for assessment of aversive learning and memory in rat models of chronic pain
(Elsevier, 2011-11)Chronic pain is associated with cognitive deficits. Considerable overlap in brain regions involved in pain and aversion suggests that aversive learning and memory may be affected during chronic pain. Passive-avoidance ... -
The endocannabinoid system in the rat dorsolateral periaqueductal grey mediates fear-conditioned analgesia and controls fear expression in the presence of nocicpetive tone
(Wiley, 2011)Background and purpose: Endocannabinoids in the midbrain periaqueductal grey (PAG) are involved in modulating nociception and unconditioned stress-induced analgesia, however, their role in fear-conditioned analgesia (FCA) ... -
A role for the ventral hippocampal endocannabinoid system in fear-conditioned analgesia and fear responding in the presence of nociceptive tone in rats.
(Elsevier, 2011-08)The endogenous cannabinoid (endocannabinoid) system plays an important role in fear-conditioned analgesia (FCA) and expression and extinction of conditioned fear. The hippocampus has an established role in both pain and ... -
Molecular and electrophysiological changes in the prefrontal cortex-amygdala-dorsal periaqueductal grey pathway during persistent pain state and fear-conditioned analgesia
(Elsevier, 2011-10)Fear-conditioned analgesia (FCA) is the reduction in pain responding which is expressed upon re-exposure to a context previously paired with an aversive stimulus. Projections along the prefrontal cortex (PFC)¿amygdala¿dorsal ... -
Modulation of Conditioned Fear, Fear-Conditioned Analgesia, and Brain Regional C-Fos Expression Following Administration of Muscimol into the Rat Basolateral Amygdala
(Elsevier, 2011-04)Evidence suggests that gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) signalling in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) is involved in pain, fear, and fear-conditioned analgesia (FCA). In this study, we investigated the effects of intra-BLA ... -
Fear-induced suppression of nociceptive behaviour and activation of signal transduction molecules in the rat periaqueductal grey: role of fatty acid amide hydrolase.
(Sage, 2011-09-17)The endocannabinoid system regulates nociception and aversion and mediates fear-conditioned analgesia (FCA). We investigated the effects of the fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) inhibitor URB597, which inhibits the catabolism ... -
Inhibition by Anandamide of 6-Hydroxydopamine-Induced Cell Death in PC12 Cells
(2010)6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) is a selective neurotoxin that is widely used to investigate cell death and protective strategies in models of Parkinson's disease. Here, we investigated the effects of the endogenous cannabinoid, ... -
Supraspinal modulation of pain by cannabinoids: the role of GABA and glutamate
(2007)Recent physiological, pharmacological and anatomical studies provide evidence that one of the main roles of the endocannabinoid system in the brain is the regulation of ¿-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and glutamate release. ...