YokoCo

Human pain is a salient stimulus composed of two main components: a sensorysomatic component, carrying peripheral nociceptive sensation via the spino-thalamic tract and brainstem nuclei to the thalamus and then to sensory cortical regions, and an affective (suffering) component, where information from central thalamic nuclei is carried to the anterior insula, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and other regions. While the sensory component processes information about stimulus location and intensity, the affective component processes information regarding pain-related expectations, motivation to reduce pain, and pain unpleasantness. Unlike investigations of acute pain that are based on the introduction of real-time stimulus during brain recordings, chronic pain investigations are usually based on longitudinal and case-control studies, which are limited in their ability to infer the functional network topology of chronic pain. In the current study, we utilized the unique opportunity to target the central nervous system's pain pathways in two different hierarchical locations to establish causality between pain relief and specific connectivity changes seen within the salience and sensorimotor networks. We examined how lesions to the affective and somatic pain pathways affect resting-state network topology in cancer patients suffering from severe intractable pain. Two procedures have been employed: percutaneous cervical cordotomy (n = 15), hypothesized to disrupt the transmission of the sensory component of pain along the spino-thalamic tract, or stereotactic cingulotomy (n = 7), which refers to bilateral intra-cranial ablation of an area in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and is known to ameliorate the affective component of pain. Both procedures led to immediate significant alleviation of experienced pain and decreased functional connectivity within the salience network. However, only the sensory procedure (cordotomy) led to decreased connectivity within the sensorimotor network. Thus, our results support the existence of two converging systems relaying experienced pain, showing that pain-related suffering can be either directly influenced by interfering with the affective pathway, or indirectly influenced by interfering with the ascending spino-thalamic tract.

To investigate whether the delay between onset of neurological signs and spinal cord decompression affects the time to recovery in non-ambulatory paraparetic/paraplegic dogs with deep pain perception affected by thoracolumbar intervertebral disc extrusion.

Breast disorders (BD) during pregnancy and postpartum cause anxiety and reduce women's quality of life. The study examined BD risk factors during pregnancy and six months after delivery.

Voltage-gated sodium channels (Na) are closely associated with epilepsy, cardiac and skeletal muscle diseases, and neuropathic pain. Several toxic compounds have been isolated from the marine sponge ; however, toxic substances that modulate Na are yet to be identified. This study aimed to identify Na inhibitors from two snake venoms and using mouse neuroblastoma Neuro-2A cells (N2A), which primarily express the specific Na subtype Na1.7, using whole-cell patch-clamp recordings. We successfully isolated arachidonic acid (AA, ) from the hexane extract of , and then the fatty acid-mediated modulation of Na in N2A was investigated in detail for the first time. Octanoic acid (), palmitic acid (), and oleic acid () showed no inhibitory activity at 100 μM, whereas AA (), dihomo-γ-linolenic acid (DGLA, ), and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA, ) showed IC values of 6.1 ± 2.0, 58 ± 19, and 25 ± 4.0 μM, respectively ( = 4, mean ± SEM). Structure and activity relationships were investigated for the first time using two ω-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), EPA () and eicosatetraenoic acid (ETA, ), and two ω-6 PUFAs, AA () and DGLA (), to determine their effects on a resting state, activated state, and inactivated state. Steady-state analysis showed that the half inactivation potential was largely hyperpolarized by 10 μM AA (), while 50 μM DGLA (), 50 μM EPA (), and 10 μM ETA () led to a slight change. The percentages of the resting state block were 24 ± 1, 22 ± 1, 34 ± 4, and 38 ± 9% in the presence of AA (), DGLA (), EPA (), and ETA (), respectively, with EPA () and ETA () exhibiting a greater inhibition than both AA () and DGLA (), and their inhibitions did not increase in the following depolarization pulses. None of the compounds exhibited the use-dependent block. The half recovery times from the inactivated state for the control, AA (), DGLA (), EPA (), and ETA () were 7.67 ± 0.33, 34.3 ± 1.10, 15.5 ± 1.10, 10.7 ± 0.31, and 3.59 ± 0.18 ms, respectively, with AA () exhibiting a distinctively large effect. Overall, distributed binding to the resting and the inactivated states of Na would be significant for the inhibition of Na, which presumably depends on the active structure of each PUFA.

Biomechanics represents the common final output through which all biopsychosocial constructs of back pain must pass, making it a rich target for phenotyping. To exploit this feature, several sites within the NIH Back Pain Consortium (BACPAC) have developed biomechanics measurement and phenotyping tools. The overall aims of this paper were to: 1) provide a narrative review of biomechanics as a phenotyping tool; 2) describe the diverse array of tools and outcome measures that exist within BACPAC; and 3) highlight how leveraging these technologies with the other data collected within BACPAC may elucidate the relationship between biomechanics and other metrics used to characterize low back pain (LBP).

The COVID-19 vaccination in autoimmune diseases (COVAD) study aimed to assess short-term COVID-19 vaccination-related adverse events (AEs) in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients.

In vivo retrospective study of fully automatic quantitative imaging feature extraction from clinically acquired lumbar spine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Adults with chronic pain who also report high pain intensity and disability are more likely to experience depression and anxiety symptoms. The current study examined changes in anxiety and depression symptoms after an internet-delivered pain management program based on baseline pain intensity and disability severity categories. In a secondary analysis of data from four randomised controlled trials (n = 1333), greater pain intensity and disability were associated with increased odds of elevated anxiety or depression symptoms at baseline. Treatment led to greater reductions in anxiety and depression symptoms compared to a waitlist control, and these improvements occurred irrespective of baseline pain intensity or disability severity. Those individuals who reported ≥ 30% improvements in pain intensity or disability at post-treatment were more likely to also report ≥ 30% improvements in psychological symptoms. Importantly, most participants who achieved ≥ 30% improvements in depression and anxiety had not experienced such improvements in pain intensity or disability. These findings suggest that emerging internet-delivered pain management programs can lead to reductions in psychological distress even when pain intensity and disability are severe or do not improve with treatment. This indicates the value of such treatments in treating distress and improving mental health in people with chronic pain.

The DEG/ENaC family of ion channels was defined based on the sequence similarity between degenerins (DEG) from the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans and subunits of the mammalian epithelial sodium channel (ENaC), and also includes a diverse array of non-voltage-gated cation channels from across animal phyla, including the mammalian acid-sensing ion channels (ASICs) and Drosophila pickpockets. ENaCs and ASICs have wide ranging medical importance, for example, ENaCs play an important role in respiratory and renal function, and ASICs in ischemia and inflammatory pain, as well as being implicated in memory and learning. Electrophysiological approaches, both in vitro and in vivo, have played an essential role in establishing the physiological properties of this diverse family, identifying an array of modulators and implicating them in an extensive range of cellular functions, including mechanosensation, acid sensation and synaptic modulation. Likewise, genetic studies in both invertebrates and vertebrates have played an important role in linking our understanding of channel properties to function at the cellular and whole animal/behavioural level. Drawing together genetic and physiological evidence is essential to furthering our understanding of the precise cellular roles of DEG/ENaC channels, with the diversity among family members allowing comparative physiological studies to dissect the molecular basis of these diverse functions. Abstract figure legend Schematic illustrating the diverse modulators and stimuli that influence DEG/ENaC function (blue arrows) and the diverse range of functions in which they have been implicated (green arrows), in an array of animals, exemplified by those depicted. Created with Biorender.com. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.