title: Demonstration of a trigeminothalamic pathway to the oval paracentral intralaminar thalamic nucleus and its involvement in the processing of noxious orofacial deep inputs.
abstract: Using combined retrograde labeling and Fos protein immunohistochemistry, we show that after masseter inflammation, a population of neurons in the dorsal portion of the subnuclei interpolaris/caudalis transition zone at the level of the obex was activated and projected to the oval paracentral nucleus (OPC) of the intralaminar thalamic nuclei. The present findings indicate a trigeminothalamic pathway to the OPC intralaminar nucleus involved in central processing of orofacial deep noxious input.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Sciences, Dental School; and Program in Neuroscience, University of Maryland, Rm. 5A26, 666 W. Baltimore Street, Baltimore, MD 21201, USA.
authors.forename: Shinichi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sugiyo
authors.forename: Motohide
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Takemura
authors.forename: Ronald
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Dubner
authors.forename: Ke
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ren
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005157:Facial Pain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D020646:Intralaminar Thalamic Nuclei / Q000737:chemistry / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000737:chemistry / Q000502:physiology; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D013787:Thalamic Nuclei / Q000737:chemistry / Q000502:physiology; D014278:Trigeminal Nuclei / Q000737:chemistry / Q000502:physiology*