A little more than 40 years ago, Linda Dykstra and her husband, Bill Hylander, were driving from Chicago toward new careers at Carolina and Duke when they drove through the place they would return for their careers’ end.
As they passed Mouth of Wilson near the New River, Dykstra thought it was “the most beautiful area we’d ever seen.” The next year the family bought a farm farther up the river in an area known as Spring Valley, not far from Galax, Va.
As Dykstra, William Rand Kenan Distinguished Professor in Psychology who also holds appointments in pharmacology and neurobiology, enters phased retirement, she’ll split her time between Chapel Hill and the family farm in Spring Valley. Her husband, two children and brand-new grandson are already there.
Like many pivotal moments in her Carolina career, Dykstra said, “It was a progression, and I just knew it was time.”
Building a better painkiller
For four decades, Dykstra has led an active research career in the search for a better way to treat pain.
With longstanding grants from the National Institutes of General Medical Sciences and the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Dykstra and a group of graduate students in behavioral neuroscience have investigated the behavioral and pharmacological effects of drugs, particularly opioid analgesics.
Dykstra said opioid analgesics (a type of pain medication) can leave in their wake a host of problems once they have relieved pain. In addition to respiratory suppression, nausea, vomiting and constipation, the drugs can produce euphoria and lead to tolerance, dependence or abuse.
“In order to obtain equivalent pain relief over time, the dosage increases. Then, when the individual stops taking the drug, withdrawal signs are likely to occur,” Dykstra said.
Abuse of prescription painkillers has risen rapidly in the last 10 to 20 years, she said. They are often easy to obtain and prescribed in large amounts to prevent a patient having to return to the doctor.
“Chemists have improved on the pharmacokinetic profile of opioid analgesics over the years. Some have a longer duration of action and are more potent, and available orally. In some ways, this improvement made them easier to abuse,” Dykstra explained.
While new practices – such as the N.C. Controlled Substances Reporting System – are helping to identify patients who abuse or misuse the drugs, researchers in Dykstra’s laboratory are still searching for a better way to ease pain by examining other ways to treat it.
They have looked at ways to increase morphine’s effectiveness by combining it with drugs that work in other neurobiological systems and examined ways in which some of the uncomfortable signs of opioid withdrawal can be alleviated. Recently Rebecca Balter, a doctoral student working with Dykstra, measured the effects of exercise on opioid withdrawal in mice.
“Some of the uncomfortable withdrawal signs were attenuated in mice that had access to running wheels in their home cages,” Dykstra said.
This kind of research is where pharmacology and psychology meet. In 1977, Dykstra co-wrote “Psychopharmacology: A Biochemical and Behavioral Approach,” one of the first textbooks that introduced this interdisciplinary approach.
“Pharmacology examines the multiple ways in which a drug alters biochemical and physiological functions,” she said. “Here, we examine the ways in which a drug alters a behavior, specifically the relief of pain.”
By Courtney Mitchell, University Gazette
Read the full story here: http://gazette.unc.edu/2013/09/24/active-research-and-student-support-mark-dykstras-four-decades-on-carolinas-faculty/
