Suppression of pain in the late phase of chronic trigeminal neuropathic pain failed to rescue the decision-making deficits in rats

Suresh Kanna Murugappan, Li Xie, Heung Yan Wong, Zafar Iqbal, Zhuogui Lei, Aruna Surendran Ramkrishnan, Ying Li*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal Publications and ReviewsRGC 21 - Publication in refereed journalpeer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)
75 Downloads (CityUHK Scholars)

Abstract

Trigeminal neuropathic pain (TNP) led to vital cognitive functional deficits such as impaired decision-making abilities in a rat gambling task. Chronic TNP caused hypomyelination in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) associated with decreased synchronization between ACC spikes and basal lateral amygdala (BLA) theta oscillations. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of pain suppression on cognitive impairment in the early or late phases of TNP. Blocking afferent signals with a tetrodotoxin (TTX)-ELVAX implanted immediately following nerve lesion suppressed the allodynia and rescued decision-making deficits. In contrast, the TTX used at a later phase could not suppress the allodynia nor rescue decision-making deficits. Intra-ACC administration of riluzole reduced the ACC neural sensitization but failed to restore ACC-BLA spike-field phase synchrony during the late stages of chronic neuropathic pain. Riluzole suppressed allodynia but failed to rescue the decision-making deficits during the late phase of TNP, suggesting that early pain relief is important for recovering from pain-related cognitive impairments. The functional disturbances in ACC neural circuitry may be relevant causes for the deficits in decision making in the chronic TNP state.
Original languageEnglish
Article number7846
JournalInternational Journal of Molecular Sciences
Volume22
Issue number15
Online published22 Jul 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2021

Research Keywords

  • anterior cingulate cortex
  • trigeminal neuropathic pain
  • decision making
  • early or late phase
  • tetrodotoxin
  • synaptic plasticity
  • theta oscillations
  • chronic constriction injury
  • riluzole
  • cognitive deficits

Publisher's Copyright Statement

  • This full text is made available under CC-BY 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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