Exuberant sprouting of sensory and sympathetic nerve fibers in nonhealed bone fractures and the generation and maintenance of chronic skeletal pain.

ABSTRACT: Skeletal injury is a leading cause of chronic pain and long-term disability worldwide. While most acute skeletal pain can be effectively managed with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and opiates, chronic skeletal pain is more difficult to control using these same therapy regimens. One possibility as to why chronic skeletal pain is more difficult to manage over time is that there may be nerve sprouting in nonhealed areas of the skeleton that normally receive little (mineralized bone) to no (articular cartilage) innervation. If such ectopic sprouting did occur, it could result in normally nonnoxious loading of the skeleton being perceived as noxious and/or the generation of a neuropathic pain state. To explore this possibility, a mouse model of skeletal pain was generated by inducing a c

SUBMITTER: Chartier SR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4254205 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature