Articles: neuropathic-pain.
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Acta Anaesthesiol Scand · Nov 2015
Pain-related psychological distress, self-rated health and significance of neuropathic pain in Danish soldiers injured in Afghanistan.
Pain and mental health concerns are prevalent among veterans. While the majority of research has focused on chronic pain as an entity, there has been little work directed towards investigating the role of neuropathic pain in relation to psychological comorbidity. As such, we hypothesised that participants with signs of neuropathic pain would report higher levels of psychological distress and diminished self-rated health compared to those without a neuropathic component. ⋯ The results from the present study suggest that neuropathic pain is related to increased psychological distress and deterioration in self-rated health in injured soldiers.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Motor Cortex Stimulation for Neuropathic Pain: A Randomized Cross-over Trial.
Chronic motor cortex stimulation (MCS) has been used to treat medically refractory neuropathic pain over the past 20 years. We investigated this procedure using a prospective multicentre randomized blinded crossover trial. ⋯ We failed to show that MCS is an effective treatment for refractory upper extremity neuropathic pain and suggest that previous studies may have been skewed by placebo effects, or ours by nocebo. We suggest that a healthy degree of skepticism is warranted when considering this invasive therapy for upper extremity pain syndromes.
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Experimental neurology · Nov 2015
Bulleyaconitine A depresses neuropathic pain and potentiation at C-fiber synapses in spinal dorsal horn induced by paclitaxel in rats.
Paclitaxel, a widely used chemotherapeutic agent, often induces painful peripheral neuropathy and at present no effective drug is available for treatment of the serious side effect. Here, we tested if intragastrical application of bulleyaconitine A (BLA), which has been approved for clinical treatment of chronic pain in China since 1985, could relieve the paclitaxel-induced neuropathic pain. A single dose of BLA attenuated the mechanical allodynia, thermal hyperalgesia induced by paclitaxel dose-dependently. ⋯ Spinal or intravenous application of BLA depressed the spinal LTP, dose-dependently. Furthermore, patch clamp recordings in spinal cord slices revealed that the frequency but not amplitude of both spontaneous excitatory postsynaptic current (sEPSCs) and miniature excitatory postsynaptic currents (mEPSCs) in lamina II neurons was increased in paclitaxel-treated rats, and the superfusion of BLA reduced the frequency of sEPSCs and mEPSCs in paclitaxel-treated rats but not in naïve ones. Taken together, we provide novel evidence that BLA attenuates paclitaxel-induced neuropathic pain and that depression of spinal LTP at C-fiber synapses via inhibiting presynaptic transmitter release may contribute to the effect.
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Neuroscience letters · Oct 2015
Gabapentin attenuates neuropathic pain and improves nerve myelination after chronic sciatic constriction in rats.
Gabapentin (GBP) is an anti-convulsive drug often used as analgesic to control neuropathic pain. This study aimed at evaluating oral GBP treatment (30, 60, 120 mg/kg, 60 min prior to chronic constriction of the sciatic nerve (CCSN) along 15-day treatment post-injury, 12 h/12 h) by monitoring spontaneous and induced-pain behaviors in Wistar rats on 5th and 15th days post-injury during early neuropathic events. CCSN animals receiving saline were used as controls. ⋯ In addition, GPB (60 mg/kg) improved nerve axonal, fiber and myelin area 15 days post-surgery. In conclusion, GBP alleviated mechanical and thermal allodynia and spontaneous pain-related behaviors and improved later nerve morphology. Our findings suggest that GBP improve nerve remyelination after chronic constriction of the sciatic nerve.
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Biochemical pharmacology · Oct 2015
The role of alpha5 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in mouse models of chronic inflammatory and neuropathic pain.
The aim of the present study was to determine the impact of α5 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) subunit deletion in the mouse on the development and intensity of nociceptive behavior in various chronic pain models. The role of α5-containing nAChRs was explored in mouse models of chronic pain, including peripheral neuropathy (chronic constriction nerve injury, CCI), tonic inflammatory pain (the formalin test) and short and long-term inflammatory pain (complete Freund's adjuvant, CFA and carrageenan tests) in α5 knock-out (KO) and wild-type (WT) mice. The results showed that paw-licking time was decreased in the formalin test, and the hyperalgesic and allodynic responses to carrageenan and CFA injections were also reduced. ⋯ Nicotine reversal of mechanical allodynia in the CCI test was mediated through α5-nAChRs at spinal and peripheral sites. In summary, our results highlight the involvement of the α5 nAChR subunit in the development of hyperalgesia, allodynia and inflammation associated with chronic neuropathic and inflammatory pain models. They also suggest the importance of α5-nAChRs as a target for the treatment of chronic pain.