A craniofacial-specific monosynaptic circuit enables heightened affective pain.

Abstract

Humans often rank craniofacial pain as more severe than body pain. Evidence suggests that a stimulus of the same intensity induces stronger pain in the face than in the body. However, the underlying neural circuitry for the differential processing of facial versus bodily pain remains unknown. Interestingly, the lateral parabrachial nucleus (PBL), a critical node in the affective pain circuit, is activated more strongly by noxious stimulation of the face than of the hindpaw. Using a novel activity-dependent technology called CANE developed in our laboratory, we identified and selectively labeled noxious-stimulus-activated PBL neurons and performed comprehensive anatomical input-output mapping. Surprisingly, we uncovered a hitherto uncharacterized monosynaptic connection between cranial sensory neurons and the PBL-nociceptive neurons. Optogenetic activation of this monosynaptic craniofacial-to-PBL projection induced robust escape and avoidance behaviors and stress calls, whereas optogenetic silencing specifically reduced facial nociception. The monosynaptic circuit revealed here provides a neural substrate for heightened craniofacial affective pain.

Department

Description

Provenance

Citation

Published Version (Please cite this version)

10.1038/s41593-017-0012-1

Publication Info

Rodriguez, Erica, Katsuyasu Sakurai, Jennie Xu, Yong Chen, Koji Toda, Shengli Zhao, Bao-Xia Han, David Ryu, et al. (2017). A craniofacial-specific monosynaptic circuit enables heightened affective pain. Nature neuroscience, 20(12). pp. 1734–1743. 10.1038/s41593-017-0012-1 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/17673.

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Scholars@Duke

Chen

Yong Chen

Associate Professor in Neurology

Dr. Yong Chen is an Associate Professor of Neurology at the Duke University School of Medicine.  He is also affiliated with Duke Anesthesiology-Center for Translational Pain Medicine (CTPM) and Duke-Pathology.

The Chen lab mainly studies sensory neurobiology of pain and itch, with a focus on TRP ion channels and neural circuits. The main objective of our lab is to identify molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying chronic pain and chronic-disease associated itch, using a combination of animal behavioral, genetic, molecular and cellular, advanced imaging, viral, and optogenetic approaches.  There are three major research areas in the lab: craniofacial pain, arthritis pain and joint function, and systemic-disease associated itch.

Yin

Henry Yin

Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience

I am interested in understanding the neural mechanisms underlying goal-directed actions. For the first time in history, advances in psychology and neurobiology have made it feasible to pursue the detailed neural mechanisms underlying goal-directed and voluntary actions--how they are driven by the needs and desires of the organism and controlled by cognitive processes that provide a rich representation of the self and the world. My approach to this problem is highly integrative, combining behavioral analysis with electrophysiological techniques as well as tools from molecular biology. In the near future three techniques will be emphasized. 1) Dissecting reward-guided behavior using analytical behavioral assays. 2) In vivo recording from cerebral cortex, thalamus, midbrain, and basal ganglia in awake behaving rodents. Up to hundreds of neurons can be recorded from multiple brain areas that form a functional neural network in a single animal. 3) In vitro (and ex vivo) whole-cell patch-clamp recording in brain slices, with the aid of genetic tools for visualization of distinct neuronal populations. Ultimately, I hope to characterize goal-directed actions at multiple levels of analysis--from molecules to neural networks. This knowledge will provide us with insight into various pathological conditions characterized by impaired goal-directed behaviors, such as drug addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder, Parkinson's disease, and Huntington's disease.

Liedtke

Wolfgang Bernhard Liedtke

Adjunct Professor in the Department of Neurology

Research Interests in the Liedtke-Lab:

  • Pain/ nociception
  • Sensory transduction and -transmission
  • TRP ion channels
  • Water and salt equilibrium regulated by the central nervous system



Visit the lab's website, download papers and read Dr. Liedtke's CV here.
Wang

Fan Wang

Adjunct Professor in the Department of Neurobiology

My lab studies neural circuit basis of sensory perception. 
Specifically we are interested in determining neural circuits underlying (1) active touch sensation including tactile processing stream and motor control of touch sensors on the face; (2) pain sensation including both sensory-discriminative and affective aspects of pain; and (3) general anesthesia including the active pain-suppression process. We use a combination of genetic, viral, electrophysiology, and in vivo imaging (in free-moving animals) techniques to study these questions.


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