Rostral ventral medulla cholinergic mechanism in pain-induced analgesia

NEUROSCIENCE LETTERS

卷:464

Article

Gear, Robert W.²  Levine, Jon D.^1,2 

[1] Univ Calif San Francisco, Dept Med, San Francisco, CA 94143 USA

[2] Univ Calif San Francisco, Dept Oral & Maxillofacial Surg, San Francisco, CA 94143 USA

关键词: Nucleus accumbens;    Noxious stimulation;    Antinociception;    Pedunculopontine tegmental nucleus;    Acetylcholine;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.neulet.2009.08.036

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

The ascending nociceptive control (ANC), a novel spinostriatal pain modulation pathway. mediates a form of pain-induced analgesia referred to as noxious stimulus-induced antinociception (NSIA). ANC includes specific spinal cord mechanisms as well as circuitry in nucleus accumbens, a major component of the ventral striatum. Here, using the trigeminal jaw-opening reflex (JOR) in the rat as a nociceptive assay, we show that microinjection of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) antagonist mecamylamine into the rostral ventral medulla (RVM) blocks NSIA, implicating RVM as a potentially important link between ANC and the PAG-RVM-spinal descending pain modulation system. A circuit connecting nucleus accumbens to the RVM is proposed as a novel striato-RVM pathway. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

【 授权许可】

Free