Nature Communications (May 2018)

Top-down descending facilitation of spinal sensory excitatory transmission from the anterior cingulate cortex

  • Tao Chen,
  • Wataru Taniguchi,
  • Qi-Yu Chen,
  • Hidetoshi Tozaki-Saitoh,
  • Qian Song,
  • Ren-Hao Liu,
  • Kohei Koga,
  • Tsuyoshi Matsuda,
  • Yae Kaito-Sugimura,
  • Jian Wang,
  • Zhi-Hua Li,
  • Ya-Cheng Lu,
  • Kazuhide Inoue,
  • Makoto Tsuda,
  • Yun-Qing Li,
  • Terumasa Nakatsuka,
  • Min Zhuo

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-04309-2
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 1
pp. 1 – 17

Abstract

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It is known that descending facilitation of spinal responses may contribute to chronic pain, however many studies have focussed on brainstem mechanisms. Here the authors show that stimulation of the anterior cingulate cortex increases excitatory transmission in the dorsal horn, and that this may be via a direct pathway independent of the brainstem.