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The Journal of Neuroscience, April 19, 2006, 26(16):4308-4317; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0003-06.2006

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Development/Plasticity/Repair
Activated Microglia Contribute to the Maintenance of Chronic Pain after Spinal Cord Injury

Bryan C. Hains and Stephen G. Waxman

Department of Neurology and Center for Neuroscience and Regeneration Research, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06510, and Rehabilitation Research Center, Virginia Connecticut Healthcare System, West Haven, Connecticut, 06516

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Stephen G. Waxman, Department of Neurology, Yale University School of Medicine, 333 Cedar Street, LCI-707, New Haven, CT 06510. Email: stephen.waxman{at}yale.edu

Traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) results not only in motor impairment but also in chronic central pain, which can be refractory to conventional treatment approaches. It has been shown recently that in models of peripheral nerve injury, spinal cord microglia can become activated and contribute to development of pain. Considering their role in pain after peripheral injury, and because microglia are known to become activated after SCI, we tested the hypothesis that activated microglia contribute to chronic pain after SCI. In this study, adult male Sprague Dawley rats underwent T9 spinal cord contusion injury. Four weeks after injury, when lumbar dorsal horn multireceptive neurons became hyperresponsive and when behavioral nociceptive thresholds were decreased to both mechanical and thermal stimuli, intrathecal infusions of the microglial inhibitor minocycline were initiated. Electrophysiological experiments showed that minocycline rapidly attenuated hyperresponsiveness of lumbar dorsal horn neurons. Behavioral data showed that minocycline restored nociceptive thresholds, at which time spinal microglial cells assumed a quiescent morphological phenotype. Levels of phosphorylated-p38 were decreased in SCI animals receiving minocycline. Cessation of delivery of minocycline resulted in an immediate return of pain-related phenomena. These results suggest an important role for activated microglia in the maintenance of chronic central below-level pain after SCI and support the newly emerging role of non-neuronal immune cells as a contributing factor in post-SCI pain.

Key words: microglia; sensitization; dorsal horn; pain; spinal cord injury; hypersensitivity

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Received Jan. 2, 2006; revised March 14, 2006; accepted March 14, 2006.

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Stephen G. Waxman, Department of Neurology, Yale University School of Medicine, 333 Cedar Street, LCI-707, New Haven, CT 06510. Email: stephen.waxman{at}yale.edu

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