Journal of chemical neuroanatomy
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J. Chem. Neuroanat. · Dec 2006
Projections from the mesopontine tegmental anesthesia area to regions involved in pain modulation.
Pentobarbital microinjected into a restricted locus in the upper brainstem induces a general anesthesia-like state characterized by atonia, loss of consciousness, and pain suppression as assessed by loss of nocifensive response to noxious stimuli. This locus is the mesopontine tegmental anesthesia area (MPTA). Although anesthetic agents directly influence spinal cord nociceptive processing, antinociception during intracerebral microinjection indicates that they can also act supraspinally. ⋯ The MPTA also has modest direct projections to the trigeminal nuclear complex and to superficial layers of the dorsal horn. Double anterograde and retrograde labeling at the light and electron microscopic levels shows that MPTA neurons with descending projections synapse directly on spinally projecting cells of rostromedial medulla. The prominence of the MPTA's projection to the rostromedial medulla suggests that, like the PAG, it may exert antinociceptive actions via this bulbospinal relay.