My interest is the increased understanding and treatment of pain.
I am in charge of a laboratory-based research program, yet also assume clinical responsibilities in my outpatient clinics, within the Duke Pain and Palliative Care unit, where I see patients suffering from trigeminal neuropathic pain.
- The latter comprises trigeminal neuralgia, "atypical face pain", chronic pain of ear, eye, sinus, throat, oral and dental origin. Patients suffering from migraine headaches, a sizable cohort, are being seen by my colleague, Dr. Timothy Collins.
- Patients suffering from cluster headaches and other episodic headaches are being cared for in my outpatient unit.
In many cases, the outpatient visits are being conducted as consultations in response to referrals, so that the referring colleagues then move on with the regular care of the patient. However, some cases are being cared for on a regular basis in my clinics.
As a Duke Neurology and Center for Translational Neuroscience faculty, my aim is to take recent findings from the laboratory bench as directly as possible to the outpatient clinics and vice versa. That means that my research is continuously inspired by the experiences and insights I gain when encountering my patients, but also that I aim for clinical studies and human experimentation in the field of trigeminal pain. Re the latter, it is my interest to precisely examine thresholds and de-sensitization properties for noxious heat and cold in trigeminally-innervated territories of human subjects. After examining healthy subjects and establishing "normal" values, I want to apply these methods to patients, so that I can begin to address the questions whether any abnormalities in patients correlate to clinical course, including the response to drug treatment, and whether these treatments are influencing thresholds and their de-sensitization kinetics.  Schematic of pain transduction and transmission in the human trigeminal system (click to view larger image)
Applications to bring in your talent and drive by joining this lab are highly encouraged at this point. Please do not hesitate to contact me at wolfgang(at)neuro.duke.edu.
Thank you
Wolfgang Liedtke
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