Comparison of sympathetic sprouting in sensory ganglia in three animal models of neuropathic pain

Bae Hwan Lee, Young Wook Yoon, Kyungsoon Chung, Jin Mo Chung

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    92 Scopus citations

    Abstract

    Sympathetic postganglionic fibers sprout in the dorsal root ganglion (DRG) after peripheral nerve injury. Therefore, one possible contributing factor of sympathetic dependency of neuropathic pain is the extent of sympathetic sprouting in the DRG after peripheral nerve injury. The present study compared the extent of sympathetic sprouting in the DRG as well as in the injured peripheral nerve in three rat neuropathic pain models: (1) the chronic constriction injury model (CCI); (2) the partial sciatic nerve ligation injury model (PSI); and (3) the segmental spinal nerve ligation injury model (SSI). All three methods of peripheral nerve injury produced behavioral signs of ongoing and evoked pain with some differences in the magnitude of each pain component. The density of sympathetic fibers in the DRG was significantly higher at all examined postoperative times than controls in the SSI model, while it was somewhat higher than controls only at the last examined postoperative time (20 weeks) in the CCI and PSI models. Therefore, data suggest that, although sympathetic changes in the DRG may contribute to neuropathic pain syndromes in the SSI model, other mechanisms seem to be more important in the CCI and PSI models at early times following peripheral nerve injury.

    Original languageEnglish (US)
    Pages (from-to)432-438
    Number of pages7
    JournalExperimental Brain Research
    Volume120
    Issue number4
    DOIs
    StatePublished - 1998

    Keywords

    • Causalgia
    • Hyperalgesia
    • Mechanical allodynia
    • Peripheral nerve injury
    • Rat
    • Sympathetically maintained pain

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • General Neuroscience

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