Search results for "Afferent Pathway"
showing 4 items of 44 documents
Peripheral Acute Pain Mechanisms
1995
Many studies in several species, including humans, have identified a subset of primary afferent nerve fibres that are activated by potential or actual tissue-damaging stimuli. Discharge patterns of these nociceptive afferents faithfully reproduce some aspects of the applied stimuli (e.g. shape of the stimulus-response function) but not others (e.g. time-course of a sustained stimulus). Since primary nociceptive afferents provide the input to the central nervous system, their encoding properties have to be considered when studying central processing. On the other hand, pain perception correlates with some aspects of nociceptor discharges (e.g. fatigue with repetition of brief heat pulses), b…
Therapeutic targets for overactive bladder other than smooth muscle
2015
For a long time, our concepts of regulation of urinary bladder function in health and disease as well as of the target structures of therapeutics have focused on detrusor smooth muscle cells. However, other structures including urothelium, afferent nerves and bladder blood vessels may also be important in pathophysiology and its treatment.Based on a selective review of literature, we discuss the role of urothelium, afferent nerve fibers and bladder blood vessels in bladder pathophysiology and as targets for treatment.There is solid evidence now that multiple anatomical structures within the urinary bladder contribute to the regulation of its function and hence may be targets for established…
Erbb2 regulates neuromuscular synapse formation and is essential for muscle spindle development
2003
Neuregulins and their Erbb receptors have been implicated in neuromuscular synapse formation by regulating gene expression in subsynaptic nuclei. To analyze the function of Erbb2 in this process, we have inactivated the Erbb2 gene in developing muscle fibers by Cre/Lox-mediated gene ablation. Neuromuscular synapses form in the mutant mice, but the synapses are less efficient and contain reduced levels of acetylcholine receptors. Surprisingly, the mutant mice also show proprioceptive defects caused by abnormal muscle spindle development. Sensory Ia afferent neurons establish initial contact with Erbb2-deficient myotubes. However, functional spindles never develop. Taken together, our data su…
Long-Term Potentiation in the Neonatal Rat Barrel Cortex In Vivo
2012
Long-term potentiation (LTP) is important for the activity-dependent formation of early cortical circuits. In the neonatal rodent barrel cortex, LTP has been studied only in vitro . We combined voltage-sensitive dye imaging with extracellular multielectrode recordings to study whisker stimulation-induced LTP in the whisker-to-barrel cortex pathway of the neonatal rat barrel cortex in vivo . Single whisker stimulation at 2 Hz for 10 min induced an age-dependent expression of LTP in postnatal day (P) 0 to P14 rats, with the strongest expression of LTP at P3–P5. The magnitude of LTP was largest in the activated barrel-related column, smaller in the surrounding septal region, and no LTP could b…