Articles: neuralgia.
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Refractory intercostal neuralgia is a troublesome disease with long treatment cycle and short-term therapeutic effects. No treatment modality has given effective pain relief. The authors present here a safe and effective endoscopic surgical option for refractory intercostal neuralgia. ⋯ Endoscopic intercostal neurotomy is an effective and safe minimally invasive surgical treatment for refractory intercostal neuralgia.
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Piezo2 mechanotransduction channel is a crucial mediator of sensory neurons for sensing and transducing touch, vibration, and proprioception. We here characterized Piezo2 expression and cell specificity in rat peripheral sensory pathway using a validated Piezo2 antibody. Immunohistochemistry using this antibody revealed Piezo2 expression in pan primary sensory neurons of dorsal root ganglia in naïve rats, which was actively transported along afferent axons to both central presynaptic terminals innervating the spinal dorsal horn (DH) and peripheral afferent terminals in the skin. ⋯ Immunoblots showed increased Piezo2 in dorsal root ganglia ipsilateral to plantar injection of complete Freund's adjuvant, and immunostaining revealed increased Piezo2-IR intensity in the DH ipsilateral to complete Freund's adjuvant injection. This elevation of DH Piezo2-IR was also evident in various neuropathic pain models and monosodium iodoacetate knee osteoarthritis pain model, compared with controls. We conclude that (1) the pan neuronal profile of Piezo2 expression suggests that Piezo2 may function extend beyond simply touch or proprioception mediated by large-sized low-threshold mechanosensitive primary sensory neurons; (2) Piezo2 may have functional roles involving sensory processing in the spinal cord, Schwann cells, and skin melanocytes; and (3) aberrant Piezo2 expression may contribute pain pathogenesis.
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Cognitive impairment associated with chronic pain remains relatively poorly understood. Use of analgesic drugs and often present co-morbidities in patients can preclude conclusions of causative relationships between chronic pain and cognitive deficits. Here, the impact of pain resulting from spinal nerve ligation (SNL) injury in rats on short and long-term memory was assessed in the novel object recognition task. ⋯ Together these data suggest chronic pain reversibly takes up a significant amount of limited cognitive resources, leaving sufficient available for easy, but not difficult, tasks. PERSPECTIVE: Memory deficits in a rat model of chronic pain were only seen when the cognitive load was high, ie, in a difficult task. Acute treatment with duloxetine was sufficient to relieve memory deficits, suggesting chronic pain induces memory deficits by seizing limited cognitive resources to the detriment of task-related stimuli.
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Int. J. Clin. Pract. · Nov 2021
Assessment of Serum Vitamin D Levels in the serum of Patients with Postherpetic neuralgia and its correlation to pain severity: A cross-sectional comparative study.
Vitamin D is an essential micronutrient for the maintenance of many functions in the human body. Postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) is caused by the reactivation of the latent varicella-zoster virus (VZV) in the neurons. This study aims to assess the serum vitamin D level in patients with PHN and to correlate the level of vitamin D with pain severity. ⋯ PHN patients had a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency and those who had vitamin D deficiency were older and had higher degrees of pain for a longer duration. In PHN patients, vitamin D deficiency was moderately associated with increased severity and duration of pain.
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Patients with chronic neuropathic pain (NP) have a significantly increased risk of central nervous degeneration. Trigeminal neuralgia (TN) is a typical NP, and this manifestation is more obvious. In addition to severe pain, patients with TN are often accompanied by cognitive dysfunction and have a higher risk of central nervous system degeneration, but the mechanism is not clear. ⋯ Interestingly, NLRP3 specific blocker MCC950 can alleviate the neurodegeneration of trigeminal neuralgia rats to a certain extent. It is suggested that our NLRP3 inflammasome plays an important role in the neurodegeneration of trigeminal neuralgia rats. And it is related to the activation of central nervous system inflammation.