Bradley K. Taylor, PhD, Professor of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine in the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, has been awarded a five-year R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. The grant, titled "A Parabrachial Hub for the Prioritization of Pain and Other Survival Behaviors," will support Dr. Taylor's continued investigation into how the brain naturally modulates pain in response to competing survival needs.
The research builds on Dr. Taylor's team's 2025 publication in Nature, which identified a critical population of neurons in the brainstem's parabrachial nucleus that express the Y1 receptor for neuropeptide Y, a peptide Dr. Taylor has studied for more than 25 years. They found that these neurons enable organisms to suppress pain signals and thus attend to life-threatening situations that involve severe hunger, thirst, or fear. This remarkable mechanism of endogenous analgesia allows the prioritization of adaptive survival behaviors like foraging and escape.
The newly funded R01 will examine how the brain can suppress chronic pain. Dr. Taylor's team, who includes co-investigator Paramita Basu, PhD, MS, will examine how neuropeptide Y, released during hunger, thirst, and fear, acts at the parabrachial nucleus to reduce chronic postoperative pain and neuropathic pain. Using advanced techniques including microendoscopy recordings and mouse genetic models, their research aims to map the endogenous neural networks that determine how the brain prioritizes and responds to competing survival demands. Their long-term goal is to leverage this new understanding of neuropeptide Y receptor function in the brainstem to develop a new pharmacotherapy for chronic pain.