Articles: neuralgia.
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An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.
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Trigeminal nerve injury causes a distinct time window of glial activation in the trigeminal spinal subnucleus caudalis (Vc), which are involved in the initiation and maintenance phases of orofacial neuropathic pain. Microglia-derived factors enable the activation of astrocytes. The complement component C1q, which promotes the activation of astrocytes, is known to be synthesized in microglia. ⋯ Intracisternal administration of C1q caused orofacial mechanical hypersensitivity and an increase in the number of c-Fos-IR cells and fluorescence intensity of GFAP. C1q-induced orofacial mechanical hypersensitivity was completely abrogated by intracisternal administration of fluorocitrate. The present findings suggest that the enhancement in the excitability of Vc nociceptive neurons is produced by astrocytic activation via the signaling of C1q released from activated microglia in the Vc following IONI, resulting in persistent orofacial neuropathic pain.
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Journal of neurotrauma · Sep 2020
The effect of sex on motor function, lesion size, and neuropathic pain after contusion spinal cord injury in mice.
Spinal cord injury (SCI) causes neurodegeneration, impairs locomotor function, and impacts the quality of life particularly in those individuals in whom neuropathic pain develops. Whether the time course of neurodegeneration, locomotor impairment, or neuropathic pain varies with sex, however, remains understudied. Therefore, the objective of this study in male and female C57BL/6 mice was to evaluate the following outcomes for six weeks after a 75-kdyn thoracic contusion SCI: locomotor function using the Basso Mouse Scale (BMS); spinal cord tissue sparing and rostral-caudal lesion length; and mechanical allodynia and heat hyperalgesia using hindpaw application of Von Frey filaments or radiant heat stimuli, respectively. ⋯ Rostral-caudal lesion length was shorter in females than in males. Mechanical allodynia and heat hyperalgesia after SCI developed in all animals, regardless of sex; there were no differences in pain outcomes between sexes. We conclude that contusion SCI yields subtle sex differences in mice depending on the outcome measure but no significant differences in behavioral signs of neuropathic pain.