Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Colorado

Dr. Watkins received her Ph.D. in Physiology from the Medical College of Virginia in 1980 and has been at the University of Colorado Boulder since 1988. She has received career awards from the National Institute of Health and National Institute for Mental Health and numerous research grants from the National Institute for Mental Health, National Institute for Neurological Diseases and Stroke, and National Institute for Drug Abuse. She has authored or co-authored over 190 book chapters, review articles and journal articles.

Sessions at Neurovations Events

2017 Napa Pain Conference

Select Publications

  • Nicotra, L., Loram, L., Watkins, L.R. & Hutchinson, M.R., Toll like receptors in chronic pain. Experimental Neurology Special Issue on Microglia and Chronic Pain, (2012) in press.
  • Hutchinson, M.R., Shavit, Y., Grace, P.M., Rice, K.C., Maier, S.F., & Watkins, L.R., Exploring the neuroimmunolopharmacology of opioids: an integrative review of mechanisms of central immune signaling and their implicaitons for opioid analgesia, Pharmacological Reviews 63 (2011) 722-810.
  • Watkins, L.R., Hutchinson, M.R., Rice, K., & Maier, S.F., The “toll” of opioid-induced glial activation: improving the clinical efficacy of opioids by targeting glia, Trends in Pharmacological Sciences, 30 (2009) 581-591. PMCID: PMC2783351.
  • Milligan, E.D., and Watkins, L.R., Pathological and protective roles of glia in chronic pain, Nature Neuroscience Reviews, 10 (2009) 23-36.

 

Website: https://psych.colorado.edu/~lwatkins