Killam Seminar Series: Corticospinal circuits and neuropathic pain in ...

Speaker: Edmund Hollis, Director, Circuit Repair Lab, Burke Neurological Institute / Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, Weill Cornell Medicine

Host: Alyson Fournier

Abstract: Chronic neuropathic pain is a persistent and debilitating outcome of traumatic central nervous system injury, affecting up to 80% of individuals. Post-injury pain is refractory to treatments due to the limited understanding of the brain-spinal cord circuits that underlie pain signal processing. The corticospinal tract (CST) plays critical roles in sensory modulation during skilled movements and tactile sensation; however, a direct role for the CST in injury-associated neuropathic pain is unclear. Here we show that complete, selective CST transection at the medullary pyramids leads to hyperexcitability within lumbar deep dorsal horn and hindlimb allodynia-like behavior in chronically injured adult male and female mice. Chemogenetic regulation of CST-targeted lumbar spinal interneurons demonstrates that dysregulation of activity in this circuit underlies the development of tactile allodynia in chronic injury. Our findings shed light on an unrecognized circuit mechanism implicated in CNS injury-induced neuropathic pain and provide a novel target for therapeutic intervention.

Bio: Edmund Hollis, PhD, performed his graduate and postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Diego with Mark H. Tuszynski, MD, PhD and Yimin Zuo, PhD, respectively. He became Director of the Circuit Repair Laboratory at the Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM) affiliate Burke Neurological Institute (BNI) in 2015 and Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at WCM in 2016. He has received several research awards and was a recipient of a 2017 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award. Dr. Hollis served as the BNI Postdoctoral Advancement Advisor from 2021-2025, WCM IACUC Chair since 2025, and as a post-hoc member on multiple NIH study sections. His laboratory studies neural circuit control over movement using a variety of experimental approaches including genetic manipulations, 2-photon imaging, optogenetic and chemogenetic control, and novel behavioral paradigms. In collaboration with Justin Brown, MD, at Massachusetts General Hospital, he is building on his pre-clinical studies to improve motor recovery in individuals with nerve transfer surgery to treat chronic spinal cord injury.

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