​​What causes pain in Osteoarthritis?

In Osteoarthritis, pain comes from how nerves (neurons) interact with the joint tissues, like the bones where our joints meet. However, we still don’t fully understand how these nerves interact with the joint to create pain. Our team is especially focused on how bones and nerves work together to cause this pain, with the hope of discovering new ways to stop or slow down the disease.

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How do we study this?

To explore the connection between bones and nerves, we use zebrafish in our research. These are small, striped fish you might see in a pet store. Zebrafish have many advantages over mice in scientific studies. They are easy to care for, grow quickly, and are almost see-through until they are one month old.

 

What's really important for us is that zebrafish have bones and cartilage like we do, which means we can watch how their skeletal tissues interact with other tissues using just a microscope. This way, we avoid invasive experiments and minimize harm to the animals.

 

By using zebrafish, we are able to replace the need for more complex animal experiments and reduce animal suffering in our research.