title: Does the medial thalamus play a role in the negative affective component of visceral pain in rats?
abstract: Pain consists of sensory and negative affective components. Using a conditioned place aversion (CPA) paradigm, we investigated whether the medial thalamus (MT) played a role in the affective component of visceral pain induced by intraperitoneal injection of acetic acid into male Long-Evan rats. Acetic acid produced writhing response as well as CPA. The bilateral MT-lesions resulted in slight reduction of writhing response, but CPA was not affected. The results suggest that while MT may play a role in visceral nociception, it does not participate in the negative affective component of visceral pain.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Shin-Kong Wu Ho-Su Memorial Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Han-Cheng
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Sin-Chee
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Chai
authors.forename: Yen-Sheng
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Chia-Chuan
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D019342:Acetic Acid; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D001362:Avoidance Learning / Q000502:physiology; D018690:Excitatory Amino Acid Agonists / Q000633:toxicity; D007274:Injections, Intraperitoneal; D008297:Male; D016202:N-Methylaspartate / Q000633:toxicity; D010146:Pain / Q000139:chemically induced / Q000523:psychology*; D010147:Pain Measurement / Q000187:drug effects; D051381:Rats; D020318:Rats, Long-Evans; D013787:Thalamic Nuclei / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000503:physiopathology*
chemical_list: D018690:Excitatory Amino Acid Agonists; D016202:N-Methylaspartate; D019342:Acetic Acid