Home| Senior Lecturer in Neuroscience |
Contact details:
| Tel: | +44 20 7882 2295 |
| Fax: | +44 20 7882 2180 |
| Email: | p.j.shortland@qmul.ac.uk |
| Address: | Centre for Neuroscience and Trauma, |
Biography
Peter Shortland was awarded his PhD in Developmental neurobiology by the University of London in 1990. For the next six years he worked as a postdoctoral researcher in plasticity of primary afferents after nerve injury in the UK , the USA and in Sweden , supported by funds from the Medical Research Council and Fellowships from the International Human Frontiers Science Program and the Karolinska Institute. In 1996 he became a lecturer in Anatomy at Queen Mary University of London, part of the Barts & London School of Medicine and Dentistry. In 2004, he became a senior lecturer and continues to work on the functional consequences of peripheral nerve and spinal root injury and in mechanisms involved in the chronic neuropathic pain that results from these injuries.
Research Activity
Research activity focuses on alterations in somatosensory processing in dorsal root ganglion neurons and the spinal cord (and previously the trigeminal system). The emphasis is on the synaptic rearrangements, phenotypic plasticity and functional rewiring of central nervous system (CNS) circuits that occurs in adult animals after peripheral nerve or root injury, as models of chronic neuropathic pain. The ultimate aim is to be able to identify factors that are responsible for the abnormal responses to injury, to reduce/alleviate neuropathic pain and to try to restore normal function after such injuries using growth factor or other pharmacological agents. For example we have been able to demonstrate that a drug called riluzole is neuroprotective for motoneurons after avulsion injury and when combined with a neurotrophic factor called GDNF it can restore motor function in rats whose roots have been surgically reconnected to the spinal cord.
Key Publications
• Fitzgerald, M., Woolf, CJ & Shortland, P. Collateral sprouting of the central terminals of cutaneous primary afferent neurons in the rat spinal cord: pattern, morphology and influence of central targets. J. Comp. Neurol. (1990) 300: 370-385.
• Woolf, CJ, Shortland, P. & Coggeshall, RE Peripheral nerve injury triggers central sprouting of myelinated afferents. Nature (1992) 355:75-78.
• Shortland, P. & Woolf, CJ Chronic peripheral nerve section in adult rats results in a morphological rearrangement of the central terminals of axotomized A-Beta primary afferents in the spinal cord. (1993) J. Comp. Neurol. 330: 65-82.
• P. Shortland , Kinnman E, & Molander C (1997) Neuropathic nerve injury induces sprouting of A-fibre primary afferents into substantia gelatinosa of the adult rat spinal cord. Eur. J. Pain. 1:215-227.
• Molander, C, Hongpaisan J, & P. Shortland (1998) Somatotopic redistribution of c-fos expressing neurons in the superficial dorsal horn after peripheral nerve injury. Neuroscience 84: 241-253.
• P. Shortland , HF Wang, & C Molander (1999) Distribution of transganglionically labelled soybean agglutinin primary afferent fibres after nerve injury. Brain Res. 815: 206-212.
• C. Rivero Siri, P.J. Shortland , G. Grant & N. P. Olivius (2001) Delayed administration of NGF reverses nerve injury induced central alterations of primary afferents. Neuroreport 12: 1899-1903.
• A Bergerot, PJ Shortland , P Anand, SP Hunt & T Carlstedt (2004) Co-treatment with riluzole and GDNF is necessary for functional recovery after ventral root avulsion injury. Exp. Neurology 187: 359-366.
• S Averill, GJ Michael, PJ Shortland , RC Leavesley, VR King, EJ Bradbury, SB McMahon JV Priestley (2004) NGF and GDNF ameliorate the increase in ATF3 expression that occurs in dorsal root ganglion cells in response to peripheral nerve injury EJN 19: 1437-1445.
• PJ Shortland , B Baytug, A Krzyzanowska, SB McMahon, JV Priestley, S Averill (2006) Injury to L4 dorsal root ganglion cells after L5 spinal nerve transection. EJN 23:365-373
