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Aaron Overland Entering Class - 2004 E-mail: over0105@umn.edu

Undergraduate Institution and Major/Degree:

• University of Minnesota, BS, Neuroscience, 2002 (Psychology Minor)

Major Advisor(s):

• George Wilcox, Ph.D.
• Carolyn Fairbanks, Ph.D.

Research Description:

Opioid and alpha2-adrenergic receptors mediate diverse physiological functions, including analgesia. Opioids are used clinically in the treatment of moderate to severe pain states, but the usefulness of this class of drugs is limited during prolonged administration because of the development of adverse side-effects such as tolerance, dependence, and addiction. Although many approaches have been investigated in attempts to overcome these problems, several reports have described enhanced opiate-mediated spinal antinociception following coadministration with low doses of alpha2AR agonists. It has also been shown experimentally that alpha2AR agonists interact synergistically with opioid agonists although the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon have yet to be characterized. The main goal of my research is to elucidate the mechanisms underlying opioid/adrenergic analgesic synergy in the spinal cord using neurochemical and electrophysiological techniques. This information may be important in managing chronic, opioid-insensitive pain because synergy-enabled decreases in drug doses may mitigate the unwanted side-effects observed clinically.

Lab Rotations:

• Chris Gomez
• George Wilcox
• Carolyn Fairbanks

Courses Taken Beyond the Core Courses:

• PHCL5110 Intro Pharmacology
• PHCL5462 Neuroscience Principles of Drug Abuse
• PHCL8207 Psychopharmacology Sem
• PHM8481 Advanced Neuropharmaceutics

Graduate Level Minor:

• Pharmacology

Conferences Attended:

• Society for Neuroscience, Fall 2004

Committee Members:

• Esam El-Fakahany
• George Wilcox
• Carolyn Fairbanks
• Lucy Vulchanova

Publications:

• Goracke-Postle CJ, Overland AC, Stone LS, Fairbanks CA. Agmatine transport into spinal nerve terminals is modulated by polyamine analogs. J Neurochem. 2007 Jan;100(1):132-41.
• H. Oanh Nguyen, Cory J. Goracke-Postle, Lori L. Kaminski, Aaron C.
  Overland, Andrew D. Morgan, Carolyn A. Fairbanks. Neuropharmacokinetic and dynamic studies of agmatine. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. (2003). 1009:82-105.
• Hiraoka, K., Trexler, A., Fujioka, B., Guo, Z., Zhang, H.J., Overland, A., Oberbroeckling, J., Sageshima, J., Shibata, S., Sutherland, D.E.R., Hering, B.J. :Optimal temperature in pancreas preservation by the two-layer cold storage method before islet isolation. Transplant. Proc. 2001; 33: 891-892.

Abstracts:

• Aaron C. Overland, Laura S. Stone, Carolyn A. Fairbanks, George L.
  Wilcox. Depolarization-dependent release dynamics of agmatine and D-aspartate from spinal synaptosomes: Inhibition by delta opioid receptor activation. American Pain Society Annual Meeting Abstracts. 2007.
  

• 2005-present, Neuroscience Training in Drug Abuse Research, Training Grant

Professional Memberships:

• American Pain Society

Home Town:

• Duluth, MN