Justin Burdge, PhD

Excited to share the final version of our paper, where we invented a robotic device (ARM) for pain and somatosensory testing in rodents. We are excited to see many groups already getting this device in their labs through our startup company Tactorum Inc.
elifesciences.org/articles/996...

🎤 Call for Symposia Proposals topics related to clinical practice, basic science or mechanisms, and translational research related to pain. Ideally, presentations include multiple disciplines.

The deadline to submit proposals is October 15, 2025

And if you’re interested in trying any of our tools in your lab, don’t hesitate to reach out!

It was an honor to give a talk before such an incredible crowd of researchers at the NIH Pain in Animals workshop! #PainResearch

Check it out! An interview on pain mechanisms and therapeutics with Dr. Clifford Woolf, PhD, MB, Bch of Harvard Medical School by Julia Nickols at the North American Pain School is now posted on PRF! painresearchforum.org. @utdpaincenter.bsky.social @iasp.bsky.social @usasp.bsky.social

Another week, another ARM device installed. This time in the lab of HHMI Investigator Richard Palmiter. They are doing cool long-term pain studies and this device is perfect for their needs.

Excited to see Jeff Mogil getting an ARM device in his lab for automated and remote mechanical stimulation for use in pre-clinical pain & somatosensation studies.

Nothing makes you hungrier than a time zone change and a missed lunch. Looking forward to these tacos, Seattle let’s see what you’ve got!

Enjoyed my first times in Chicago and @usasp.bsky.social this past week! So much exciting work happening in the pain field, I have a feeling that the groundwork for some fantastic collaborations was laid this week!

My first time at #usasp2025. Great science, new and old friends. First talk in a symposium at an international conference. Thank you to my co-speakers @stefpuig.bsky.social and Ream Al-Asani

The dorsal column nuclei scale mechanical sensitivity in naive and neuropathic pain states During pathological conditions, tactile stimuli can aberrantly engage nociceptive pathways leading to the perception of touch as pain, known as mechan…

Cool new study from @vabraira.bsky.social lab on tactile hypersensitivity associated with chronic pain. Glad we could collaborate. One cool thing Abraira lab did was use high-speed videography plus the PAWS pain detection system for uncovering pain behaviors.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Happy to see this device in the lab of a happy customer. There is much to do to improve pre-clinical pain/touch research, and we strongly believe this automated robot ARM can become a gold standard in the field. Exciting to see so many orders coming in!

Thanks to @justinburdge.bsky.social and @ishmailsaboor.bsky.social for delivering the ARM device to our lab, which includes Drs Kevin Tracey, Sangeeta Chavan, and Huan Yang. We'll use the ARM for high-resolution automated assessments of pain sensitivity in the context of neurogenic inflammation!

It took so much work to get here, but excited for everything we now have in the pipeline! It’s going to be an exciting month!

Thanks to @ishmailsaboor.bsky.social for lending his car and so much else to the delivery!

So excited to announce the first of TACTORUM’s ARM devices for automating pain/touch assays in mice has been delivered to @changsbrain.bsky.social ‘s lab at @northwellhealth.bsky.social. Looking forward to all the exciting questions they will explore with it!

I’ve always thought experimental schematics should include time of even, if just a range. Instead I can’t remember the last methods section that included it.

Sure 5 seconds is one thing but to do what the article suggests effectively, you need in the order of 10-15 min. A gut check is a good idea, but if we learned one thing from the first go around it should be that we can’t fact check our way out of this.

This feels well intentioned, but it’s also how we lose. The other side is winning by flooding the zone, we can’t win by slowing down further.

I started 2025 with so much enthusiasm for the science I would do… that’s pretty much evaporated

WTF! So starting Monday NIH indirects to all universities moved to 15%. This would cripple schools. This is madness.

grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

So I come up for air from coding all day, and apparently my NSF grant will probably be rejected because I referred to female mice and barriers to entry for a scientific technique. I got nothing.

Monumental day for pain management and the study of pain.

Read it in grad school, woke me up to so many writing mistakes.

Gotta say conductors trying out their standup via the subway intercom is in objective improvement.

Oof someone’s had too much eggnog this holiday😂

If I decided to study instead of going to @ishmailsaboor.bsky.social talk to an undergrad neuro club freshman year, pain research would have never even crossed my mind.

BOOM! Identification of a PIEZO2+, KIT+, and TRPM8+ A fiber nociceptor subtype that is responsible for human hair pull pain: www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-5... @saadnagi.bsky.social and colleagues, well done!

Image of rats driving a little experimental rat car in their play area.

Rats driving little rat cars 🥹 shows that complex environments enhance neuroplasticity but we’ve also learned from them that skill acquisition & delayed gratification improves cognitive function & produces bolder problem-solving strategies via dopaminergic reward systems
www.bbc.com/future/artic...

Hey Monica, I’m in neuroscience. OrciD is 0000-0002-0732-5989