title: Amygdala pain mechanisms.
abstract: A limbic brain area, the amygdala plays a key role in emotional responses and affective states and disorders such as learned fear, anxiety, and depression. The amygdala has also emerged as an important brain center for the emotional-affective dimension of pain and for pain modulation. Hyperactivity in the laterocapsular division of the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeLC, also termed the "nociceptive amygdala") accounts for pain-related emotional responses and anxiety-like behavior. Abnormally enhanced output from the CeLC is the consequence of an imbalance between excitatory and inhibitory mechanisms. Impaired inhibitory control mediated by a cluster of GABAergic interneurons in the intercalated cell masses (ITC) allows the development of glutamate- and neuropeptide-driven synaptic plasticity of excitatory inputs from the brainstem (parabrachial area) and from the lateral-basolateral amygdala network (LA-BLA, site of integration of polymodal sensory information). BLA hyperactivity also generates abnormally enhanced feedforward inhibition of principal cells in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), a limbic cortical area that is strongly interconnected with the amygdala. Pain-related mPFC deactivation results in cognitive deficits and failure to engage cortically driven ITC-mediated inhibitory control of amygdala processing. Impaired cortical control allows the uncontrolled persistence of amygdala pain mechanisms.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacology and Neuroscience, Center for Translational Neuroscience and Therapeutics, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, 3601 4th Street, Lubbock, TX, 79430-6592, USA, volker.neugebauer@ttuhsc.edu.
authors.forename: Volker
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Neugebauer
mesh_terms: D000679:Amygdala / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D002116:Calcitonin / Q000502:physiology; D003346:Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D009473:Neuronal Plasticity / Q000502:physiology; D009479:Neuropeptides / Q000502:physiology; D010146:Pain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011498:Protein Precursors / Q000502:physiology; D064529:Receptor, Metabotropic Glutamate 5 / Q000502:physiology; D016194:Receptors, N-Methyl-D-Aspartate / Q000502:physiology; D005680:gamma-Aminobutyric Acid / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D009479:Neuropeptides; D011498:Protein Precursors; D064529:Receptor, Metabotropic Glutamate 5; D016194:Receptors, N-Methyl-D-Aspartate; C506531:neuropeptide S, human; D005680:gamma-Aminobutyric Acid; D002116:Calcitonin; D003346:Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone
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