Elsevier

Psychoneuroendocrinology

Volume 30, Issue 10, November 2005, Pages 959-964
Psychoneuroendocrinology

Long-term potentiation in spinal nociceptive systems—how acute pain may become chronic

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2005.04.007Get rights and content

Summary

Chronic pain is a major problem since it is difficult to treat and the understanding of the underlying neurobiology is sparse. The mechanisms underpinning the transition of acute into chronic pain remain unclear. However, long-term potentiation (LTP) in spinal nociceptive systems may be one such mechanism. Here, we briefly review the literature regarding LTP in spinal nociceptive systems including our own data on LTP in deep convergent nociceptive neurons. Furthermore, we discuss the role of this phenomenon in understanding the neurobiology of chronic pain and the possible therapeutic implications.

Section snippets

Synaptic plasticity in the superficial spinal dorsal horn

Most of the data regarding LTP in the superficial spinal dorsal horn have been collected in Jürgen Sandkühler's laboratories in Heidelberg and Vienna and are reviewed in more detail elsewhere (Sandkühler, 2000, Sandkühler et al., 2000). Briefly, repetitive high frequency electrical stimulation (HFS) of the sciatic nerve induces LTP of synaptic transmission in Aδ-(Randic et al., 1993) and C-fibres (Liu and Sandkühler, 1995, Liu and Sandkühler, 1997) in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, strong

LTP in deep spinal WDR neurons

The deeper laminae of the spinal cord (lamina IV–VI) constitute mainly WDR neurons in contrast to the superficial laminae, where nociceptive specific (NS) neurons are prevalent (Bester et al., 2000). The role of the deep WDR cells in nociceptive processing is debated, but extensive studies show they have a great ability to code noxious and innocuous stimuli (Suzuki et al., 2002), and it is widely accepted that these neurons have a pivotal role in transmission of painful inputs. It has long been

Implications of LTP in pain pathways

The reviewed literature strongly indicates that strength at nociceptive synapses in the spinal cord can be potentiated following electrical and natural noxious peripheral stimulation, and broadly speaking the more intense the noxious stimulation is, the longer the potentiation lasts (Liu and Sandkühler, 1995, Liu and Sandkühler, 1997, Sandkuhler and Liu, 1998). Only extreme natural noxious stimulation induces LTP in intact animals (Rygh et al., 1999) and moderate to intense natural noxious

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