Hiromi Yamashita, Jorge L Zeredo, Kei Kaida, Mari Kimoto, Izumi Asahina, Kazuo Toda
Oral Surgery, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki 852-8588, Japan.
Journal of integrative neuroscience 2013 JunIn the limbic system, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACCX) is one of the key areas involved in the close association between pain and emotion. However, neuronal changes in ACCX nociceptive responses after stress conditioning have not yet been quantitatively investigated. We investigated the modulation of nociceptive responses in the ACCX neurons following restraint stress in rats. The present study demonstrated that stress-conditioning enhanced excitatory nociceptive responses in the ACCX following tail stimuli in the mid-term (7 days). Short-term (3 days) and long-term (21 days) of stress conditioning did not affect these responses significantly. Nociceptive responses evoked by other sites of the body (nose, back and four paws) stimulation were not changed by stress-conditioning, indicating that neural information from the tail is important for emotional system modulation. It is suggested that the emotional/affective part of the pain sensation is strongly modified by stress through neuroplasticity in the ACCX.
Hiromi Yamashita, Jorge L Zeredo, Kei Kaida, Mari Kimoto, Izumi Asahina, Kazuo Toda. Stress-induced modulation of nociceptive responses in the rat anterior cingulate cortex. Journal of integrative neuroscience. 2013 Jun;12(2):235-46
PMID: 23869863
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