Friday seminar – Mike Hildebrand

Venue: Centre Broca

Mike Hildebrand
Carleton University
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Invited by Pascal Fossat in the context of the FFCR grant

Title

Investigating spinal mechanisms and treatment targets for pain: From rodent preclinical models to novel human tissue assays.

Abstract

Dr. Mike Hildebrand’s research is aimed at bridging the translational divide between rodent preclinical work on spinal pain processing and new treatment approaches for humans. His team has developed new human spinal cord tissue models of pain signaling that parallel rodent in vivo and ex vivo pain models. Using these complementary approaches, they are investigating molecular mechanisms of pain processing across development, sex and species, including the regulation of excitatory glutamate receptors and neuronal excitability in dorsal horn nociceptive circuits.

Biosketch

Dr. Mike Hildebrand completed his PhD in neurophysiology in Dr. Terry Snutch’s lab at UBC, followed by an industrial R&D fellowship at NeuroMed Pharmaceuticals in Vancouver. After this, Dr. Hildebrand completed an academic postdoctoral fellowship in Mike Salter’s lab at Sick Kids Hospital. Dr. Hildebrand is now leading a translational pain research program as a Professor in the Neuroscience Department at Carleton University and as an Affiliate Investigator at The Ottawa Hospital. His NSERC-, CIHR-, and industry-funded research team is studying mechanisms of acute and chronic pain processing using animal and human spinal cord tissue models. Dr. Hildebrand is also the Chair of the Scientific Program Committee of the Canadian Pain Society and is serving as Associate Vice-Provost (Graduate Student Affairs) at Carleton.

Publications

Armstrong, J., Griffiths, K., Martin, N., Oneil, E., Temi, S., Dedek, A., Parnell, J., Rudyk, C., Krajewski, J.L., McDermott, J.S., Levine, A.J., Li, B., Tsai, E.C., Hildebrand, M.E. (Under Revision, Journal of Neuroscience) Expression and localization of NMDA receptor GluN2 subunits in dorsal horn pain circuits across sex, species, and late postnatal development. BioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.10.22.683915

Dedek, A., Gambeta, E., Shriraam, R., Topcu, E., McDermott, J.S., Krajewski, J.L., Tsai, E.C., Hildebrand, M.E. (Under revision, Brain Communications) Processing and sectioning of organ donor spinal cord tissue for electrophysiology on acute human spinal cord slices. BioRxiv DOI: 10.1101/2025.07.26.666132

Dedek, A., Topcu, E., Dedek, C., McDermott, J.S., Krajewski, J.L., Tsai, E.C., Hildebrand, M.E. (2024) Heterogeneity of synaptic NMDA receptor responses within individual lamina I pain-processing neurons across sex in rats and humans. The Journal of Physiology. 602(20): 5309-5327.

Yadav, A., Matson, K.J.E., Li, L., Hua, I. , Petrescu, J., Kang, K., Alkaslasi, M.R., Lee, D.I., Hasan, S., Gaur, P.,  Galuta, A. , Dedek, A., Ameri, S., Parnell, J., Alshardan, M.M., Ququmji, F.A., Alhamad, S.M., Wang, A.P., Poulen, G., Lonjon, N., Vachiery-Lahaye, F., Nalls, M.A., Ward, M.E., Hildebrand, M.E., Mery, P.F., Bourinet, E., Bauchet, L., Tsai, E.C., Phatnani, H., Le Pichon, C.E., Menon, V., Levine, A.J. (2023) A cellular taxonomy of the adult human spinal cord.  Neuron. 111(3): 328-344. Selected for Best of Neuron 2023-2024 (as one of ten articles)

Dedek, A., Xu, J., Lorenzo, L.E., Kandegedara, C., Godin, A.G., Glavina, G., Landrigan, J., Lombroso, P.J., Tsai, E.C., De Koninck, Y., Hildebrand, M.E. (2022) Sexual dimorphism in a neuronal mechanism of spinal hyperexcitability across rodent and human models of pathological pain. Brain. 145(3): 1124-1138.

Dedek, A.^*, Xu, J.^*, Kandegedara, C., Lorenzo, L.E., Godin, A., De Koninck, Y., Lombroso, P.J., Tsai, E.C., Hildebrand, M.E. (2019) Loss of STEP61 couples disinhibition to NMDAR potentiation in rodent and human spinal pain processing. Brain 142(6): 1535-1546. *Both authors contributed equally to this work.

Hildebrand, M.E., Xu, J., Dedek, A., Li, Y., Sengar, A., Beggs, S., Lombroso, P., Salter, M.W. (2016) Potentiation of synaptic GluN2B NMDA currents is gated through BDNF-mediated disinhibition in spinal pain processing. Cell Reports 17(10): 2753-2765.

• Place
  Centre Broca
  
• Dates
  On 20 March 2026 at 11:30