title: Does pain damage spinal cord neurons? Transsynaptic degeneration in rat following a surgical incision.
abstract: In prior studies, rats with a chronic constriction injury to the sciatic nerve have been found to have small- to medium-sized, pyknotic, and hyperchromatic neurons ('dark neurons'; DNs) in spinal dorsal horn laminae I-III. It has been proposed that DNs are produced by an excitotoxic insult involving N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor activation subsequent to ectopic nociceptor discharge, and that at least some DNs are inhibitory interneurons whose functional impairment or death contributes to a central state of hyperexcitability that underlies neuropathic hyperalgesia and allodynia. We show here that laminae I-III DNs are also present 2 days after a surgical procedure that does not include major nerve damage. We propose that this is also the result of a nociceptor-driven excitotoxic insult and that the functional impairment of the affected neurons may contribute to postoperative pain and tenderness.
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedics, University of Göteborg, Sahlgren Hospital, Sweden.
authors.forename: A K
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Nachemson
authors.forename: G J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Bennett
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D007395:Interneurons / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D009410:Nerve Degeneration / Q000502:physiology; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D009619:Nociceptors / Q000502:physiology; D010149:Postoperative Pain / Q000473:pathology*; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D013116:Spinal Cord / Q000473:pathology*; D013569:Synapses / Q000502:physiology*