Ashley Plumb
Department
Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Sciences
Advisor
Biography
Females experience higher prevalence of chronic pain which emerges around the time of puberty suggesting that sex hormones play a role. My laboratory developed an activity-induced musculoskeletal pain model that produces behavioral sex differences in which females develop bilateral pain while males develop unilateral pain. Previously, our laboratory determined that testosterone mediates the behavior phenotype. I am interested in understanding the specific pathways underlying testosterone’s contributions to nociceptive processing which may lead to novel and safer therapies for individuals suffering from chronic pain.