Zhizhong Z. Pan, Ph.D.

1993, Vollum Institute/Oregon Health Sciences University

UT M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
Anesthesiology

Research Interests: Function of opioid receptors; opioid analgesia; opioid addiction; cellular neurophysiology; behavioral neuroscience

The research in my laboratory focuses on the neural mechanisms underlying opioid-induced acute and chronic actions, including opioid analgesia, opioid tolerance and opioid addiction. A cellular approach using patch clamp recording in vitro is combined with a behavioral approach using animal models in vivo to investigate both receptor and synaptic mechanisms and their behavioral significance in the system actions of opioids. Our current studies investigate the adaptive physiological and pharmacological changes induced by chronic opioids in the brain and their contribution to the mechanisms of opioid tolerance and opioid addiction.

Through a tutorial in my laboratory, students would gain experience in the visualized patch clamp recording technique in brain slices in vitro, nucleus-specific microinjections in the brain of an anesthetized or freely moving rat, cellular studies on receptor pharmacology, signal transduction and ion channel physiology, and behavioral analysis of animal pain and reward behaviors.

____________

Zhu W, Bie B, Pan ZZ (2007) Involvement of non-NMDA receptors in central amygdala in synaptic actions of ethanol and ethanol-induced reward behavior. Journal of Neuroscience 27(2): 289-298.

Pan ZZ, Hirakawa N, Fields HL (2000) A cellular machanism for the bidirectional pain- modulating actions of orphanin FQ/nociceptin. Neuron 26:515-522.

Pan ZZ, Tershner SA, Fields HL (1997) Cellular mechanism for anti-analgesic action of agonists of the k-opioid receptor. Nature 389:382-385.

Program Affiliation:
Program in Neuroscience