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The Journal of Neuroscience, May 15, 2000, 20(10):3884-3899

Progressive Transneuronal Changes in the Brainstem and Thalamus after Long-Term Dorsal Rhizotomies in Adult Macaque Monkeys

Timothy M. Woods¹, Catherine G. Cusick², Tim P. Pons³, Edward Taub⁴, and Edward G. Jones¹

¹ Center for Neuroscience, University of California, Davis, California 95616, ² Department of Structural and Cellular Biology, Tulane University Medical Center, New Orleans, Louisiana 70112, ³ Department of Neurosurgery, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27157, and ⁴ Department of Psychology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama 35294

This study deals with a potential brainstem and thalamic substrate for the extensive reorganization of somatosensory cortical maps that occurs after chronic, large-scale loss of peripheral input. Transneuronal atrophy occurred in neurons of the dorsal column (DCN) and ventral posterior lateral thalamic (VPL) nuclei in monkeys subjected to cervical and upper thoracic dorsal rhizotomies for 13-21 years and that had shown extensive representational plasticity in somatosensory cortex and thalamus in other experiments. Volumes of DCN and VPL, number and sizes of neurons, and neuronal packing density were measured by unbiased stereological techniques. When compared with the opposite, unaffected, side, the ipsilateral cuneate nucleus (CN), external cuneate nucleus (ECN), and contralateral VPL showed reductions in volume: 44-51% in CN, 37-48% in ECN, and 32-38% in VPL. In the affected nuclei, neurons were progressively shrunken with increasing survival time, and their packing density increased, but there was relatively little loss of neurons (10-16%). There was evidence for loss of axons of atrophic CN cells in the medial lemniscus and in the thalamus, with accompanying severe disorganization of the parts of the ventral posterior nuclei representing the normally innervated face and the deafferented upper limb. Secondary transneuronal atrophy in VPL, associated with retraction of axons of CN neurons undergoing primary transneuronal atrophy, is likely to be associated with similar withdrawal of axons from the cerebral cortex and should be a powerful influence on reorganization of somatotopic maps in the somatosensory cortex.

Key words: plasticity; dorsal rhizotomy; transneuronal atrophy; dorsal column nuclei; ventral posterior lateral nucleus; stereology

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Copyright © 2000 Society for Neuroscience  0270-6474/00/20103884-16$05.00/0

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