1. Coding and Plasticity in the Mammalian Thermosensory System.
- Author
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Yarmolinsky DA, Peng Y, Pogorzala LA, Rutlin M, Hoon MA, and Zuker CS
- Subjects
- Animals, Burns physiopathology, Cold Temperature, Hot Temperature, Hyperalgesia physiopathology, Hyperesthesia physiopathology, Mice, Mice, Knockout, Mice, Transgenic, Neuronal Plasticity, Neurons physiology, TRPA1 Cation Channel, TRPM Cation Channels genetics, TRPM Cation Channels metabolism, TRPV Cation Channels genetics, Transient Receptor Potential Channels genetics, Transient Receptor Potential Channels metabolism, Trigeminal Ganglion metabolism, Trigeminal Ganglion physiology, Burns metabolism, Hyperalgesia metabolism, Hyperesthesia metabolism, Neurons metabolism, TRPV Cation Channels metabolism, Thermosensing physiology, Trigeminal Ganglion cytology
- Abstract
Perception of the thermal environment begins with the activation of peripheral thermosensory neurons innervating the body surface. To understand how temperature is represented in vivo, we used genetically encoded calcium indicators to measure temperature-evoked responses in hundreds of neurons across the trigeminal ganglion. Our results show how warm, hot, and cold stimuli are represented by distinct population responses, uncover unique functional classes of thermosensory neurons mediating heat and cold sensing, and reveal the molecular logic for peripheral warmth sensing. Next, we examined how the peripheral somatosensory system is functionally reorganized to produce altered perception of the thermal environment after injury. We identify fundamental transformations in sensory coding, including the silencing and recruitment of large ensembles of neurons, providing a cellular basis for perceptual changes in temperature sensing, including heat hypersensitivity, persistence of heat perception, cold hyperalgesia, and cold analgesia., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)
- Published
- 2016
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