Structural and functional properties of spinal dorsal horn neurons after peripheral nerve injury change overtime via astrocyte activation.

ABSTRACT: Chronic pain remains challenging to treat, despite numerous reports of its pathogenesis, including neuronal plasticity in the spinal dorsal horn (SDH). We hypothesized that understanding plasticity only at a specific time point after peripheral nerve injury (PNI) is insufficient to solve chronic pain. Here, we analyzed the temporal changes in synaptic transmission and astrocyte-neuron interactions in SDH after PNI. We found that synaptic transmission in the SDH after PNI changed in a time-dependent manner, which was accompanied by astrocyte proliferation and loss of inhibitory and excitatory neurons. Furthermore, neuronal loss was accompanied by necroptosis. Short-term inhibition of astrocytes after PNI suppressed these physiological and morphological changes and long-term pain-related beh

SUBMITTER: Kurabe M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9700017 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature