Imaging stretch-activated firing of spinal afferent nerve endings in mouse colon.

ABSTRACT: Spinal afferent neurons play a major role in detecting noxious and innocuous stimuli from visceral organs, such as the gastrointestinal tract. However, all our understanding about spinal afferents has been obtained from recordings of spinal afferent axons, or cell bodies that lie outside the gut wall, or peripheral organ they innervate. No recordings have been made directly from spinal afferent nerve endings, which is where sensory transduction occurs. We developed a preparation whereby recordings could be made from rectal afferent nerve endings in the colon, to characterize mechanisms underlying sensory transduction. Dorsal root ganglia (L6-S2) were removed from mice, whilst retaining neural continuity with the colon. Fluo-4-AM was used to record from rectal afferent nerve endings in myen

SUBMITTER: Travis L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3791392 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature