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Sensory and Autonomic Innervation of the Cervical Intervertebral Disc in Rats
- Source :
- Spine. 37:1357-1362
- Publication Year :
- 2012
- Publisher :
- Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health), 2012.
-
Abstract
- STUDY DESIGN: An immunohistological analysis of the cervical intervertebral disc (IVD). OBJECTIVE: To investigate sensory and autonomic innervation of the rat cervical IVD. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA: Many clinicians are challenged with treating wide-ranging chronic neck pain. Several authors have reported that sympathetic nerves participate in chronic pain, and various sympathectomy procedures can effectively treat chronic pain. METHODS: The neuro-tracer Fluoro-gold (FG) was applied to the anterior surfaces of C5-C6 IVDs from 10 Sprague-Dawley rats to label the neurons of the innervating dorsal root ganglion (DRG), stellate ganglion (SG; sympathetic ganglion), and nodose ganglion (NG; parasympathetic ganglion). Seven days postsurgery, DRGs from level C1-C8, SG, and NG neurons were harvested, sectioned, and immunostained for calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP; a marker for peptide-containing neurons) and isolectin B4 (IB4; a marker for nonpeptide-containing neurons). The proportion of FG-labeled DRG neurons that were CGRP-immunoreactive (CGRP-IR), IB4-binding, and non-CGRP-IR and IB4-binding, and the proportion of FG-labeled SG neurons and NG neurons were calculated. RESULTS: FG-labeled neurons innervating the C5-C6 IVD were distributed throughout the C2-C8 DRGs. The proportions of FG-labeled DRG neurons that were CGRP-IR, IB4-binding, non-CGRP-IR and IB4-binding, as well as SG neurons, and NG neurons were 20.6%, 3.3%, 55.7%, 8.9%, and 11.5%, respectively. The proportion of CGRP-IR FG-labeled DRG neurons was significantly higher than the proportion of IB4-binding FG-labeled DRG neurons at each level (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: The C5-C6 IVD was innervated multisegmentally from neurons of the C2-C8 DRG, SG, and NG. Overall, 79.6% of the nerve fibers innervating the IVD were sensory nerves and 20.4% were autonomic nerves. Furthermore, 23.9% of the nerve fibers innervating the IVD were afferent sensory pain-related nerves, 8.9% were efferent sympathetic nerves, and 11.5% were efferent parasympathetic nerves. These findings may explain the wide-ranging and chronic discogenic pain that occurs via the somatosensory and autonomic nervous system.
- Subjects :
- Male
Pathology
medicine.medical_specialty
Sensory Receptor Cells
Stilbamidines
Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide
medicine.medical_treatment
Calcitonin gene-related peptide
Rats, Sprague-Dawley
Dorsal root ganglion
Lectins
Animals
Medicine
Autonomic Pathways
Orthopedics and Sports Medicine
Intervertebral Disc
Neuronal Tract-Tracers
Fluorescent Dyes
Neck Pain
Parasympathetic ganglion
business.industry
Nodose Ganglion
Immunohistochemistry
Sympathetic ganglion
Rats
Neuroanatomical Tract-Tracing Techniques
Autonomic nervous system
medicine.anatomical_structure
nervous system
Sympathectomy
Stellate ganglion
Cervical Vertebrae
Neurology (clinical)
Chronic Pain
business
Biomarkers
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 03622436
- Volume :
- 37
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Spine
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....2fd18e267bedd8c077c5c004ae3f450a