Articles: neuralgia.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
The Effect of Erector Spinae Plane Blockade on Prevention of Postherpetic Neuralgia in Elderly Patients: A Randomized Double-blind Placebo-controlled Trial.
Postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) is the most common chronic complication following the onset of herpes zoster (HZ). Both the incidence of HZ and the proportion of patients with HZ who develop PHN rise with age. Ultrasound-guided erector spinae plane blockade (ESPB) has been reported to relieve neuropathic pain and PHN in elderly patients, but no randomized controlled trials have been conducted regarding the effect of ESPB on elderly patients with HZ in the acute or subacute phases. ⋯ For elderly patients suffering acute or subacute HZ, ESPB reduces the incidence of PHN at 12 weeks after treatment; it also decreases the occurrence of neuropathic pain, sleep disturbance, and anxiety/depression.
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Reduced laser-evoked potential (LEP) habituation indicates abnormal central pain processing. But the paradigm (four stimulation blocks a 25 stimuli) is time consuming and potentially omits important information on the exact habituation time course. This study examined whether a high temporal resolution (HTR) analysis (dividing the four stimulation blocks into 12 analysis blocks) can answer the following questions: (a) After how many stimuli does LEP habituation occur? (b) Is there a difference in LEP habituation in younger versus older subjects? (c) Is HTR applicable on radiculopathy patients? ⋯ The usage of high temporal resolution (HTR) analysis in young healthy subjects enables a short test protocol and provides the exact time course of laser-evoked potential habituation. This can be useful for the examination of neurological conditions affecting younger patients and for pharmacological studies. HTR was inapplicable in advanced-aged subjects and patients with radiculopathy.
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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.