Dr. Bradley's research focuses on the interactions among biological and psychosocial factors associated with abnormal pain sensitivity in persons with osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee, and other chronic painful disorders. Several studies are ongoing with support of an R01 grant and complementary grant funds: (1) In collaboration with investigators from the University of Florida, the goal of the R01 project is to characterize ethnic differences in experimental pain sensitivity, endogenous pain inhibition, clinical pain, and pain-related disability in older African-Americans and non-Hispanic whites with and without knee OA; (2) determine whether these measures of pain sensitivity/pain inhibition along with biological, psychological, and socio-cultural variables mediate ethnic group differences in clinical pain and pain-related disability; (3) examine the extent to which differences in pain responses between African-American and white patients with knee OA are mediated by group differences in biomarkers such as sleep disturbance or lipid mediators; and (4) examine the relationship between polysomnography measures of sleep and experimental as well as clinical pain to better understand the biological, psychological, and socio-cultural variables that mediate ethnic group differences in both sleep and pain.
