Abstract: Pain processing in the spinal cord has been postulated to rely on nociceptive transmission (T) neurons receiving inputs from nociceptors and Aβ mechanoreceptors, with Aβ inputs gated through feed-forward activation of spinal inhibitory neurons (IN). Here we used intersectional genetic manipulations to identify these critical components of pain transduction. Marking and ablating six populations of spinal excitatory and inhibitory neurons, coupled with behavioral and electrophysiological analysis, showed that excitatory neurons expressing somatostatin (SOM) represent T-type cells, whose ablation causes loss of mechanical pain. Inhibitory neurons marked by the expression of dynorphin (Dyn) represent IN-type neurons, which are necessary to gate Aβ fibers from activating SOM+ neurons to evoke pain. Therefore, peripheral mechanical nociceptors and Aβ mechanoreceptors, together with spinal SOM+ excitatory and Dyn+ inhibitory neurons form a microcircuit that transmits and gates mechanical pain.

~BME Faculty Host: Riyi Shi~

***Coffee and juice will be provided at West Lafayette***

(via live streaming to SL165 at IUPUI)