LaTasha Crawford, VMD, PhD, DACVP, prior CAIRIBU K12 Scholar and recipient of a 2023 CAIRIBU Collaboration Award, was recently awarded an R01 grant by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for her project titled, “Role of A-fiber mechanosensitive neurons in bladder function and urologic disease phenotypes.”
Dr. Crawford’s work will focus on urologic chronic pelvic pain syndrome (UCPPS). UCPPS affects up to 7% of men and women in the United States but remains understudied. The causes of UCPPS are not well understood, and there are limited therapeutic options for patients.
Dr. Crawford will study how mechanoreceptors, neurons that sense bladder distention, contribute to normal bladder function and the range of clinical symptoms that may arise. Because these neurons do not express the pain-related markers that are commonly used to investigate bladder pain, they are difficult to study. Her team will focus on mechanoreceptors that express the TrkB marker to better understand the neural drivers of bladder function and dysfunction. She hopes to use this research to ultimately identify potential neural targets for new therapies.