探討慢性疼痛神經傳導在視丘以及大腦皮質連結之功能及型態
Cell-type specific structural and functional studies of MD-InC thalamocortical neurons in neuropathic pain
慢性疼痛是現代社會中，讓許多人生活不便的疾病之一，而且止痛藥對於許多慢性疼痛並無法有良好的控制。為了探討慢性疼痛的起因以及尋求未來治療的方式，我們計畫發展可光遺傳學的方法，單獨刺激下視丘的背內側核，並且標定背內側核之神經細胞，建立一套結合光遺傳學以及形態學的研究方式，取得大腦中的疼痛圖譜。我們發現，在背內側核內有兩群型態上截然不同的神經細胞，也可以利用照射藍光之光遺傳學方式在小鼠上直接並且有目標性的刺激背內側核來活化大腦皮層。藉由此結果，我們將來希望能分別刺激不同細胞群，觀察其對於慢性疼痛的影響，以及未來可能阻斷疼痛的可能。
Chronic pain is one of the severe disorder that generate discomfort for most people in moden society. However, many chronic pain including CPSP are drug-resistant. There is a urgent need to understand the initiation and regulatory mechanism of CPSP in order to treat this disorder. Here we want to use optogenetic method to specificall stimulate medial dorsal nucleus in the thalamus to activate cortex recipient region. By combining single cell labeling method, we could build a functional neuronal map for pain pathway between thalamus and cortex. Here we successfull stimiate MD in the thalamus and recorded the activation in the cortex using optogenetic method. In addition, we found that neuron in MD can be divdied into at least 2 different population according to their morphlogy. In the future, we hope to build a complete neuronal circiutry to study the chronic pain induction and potentially block the transduction for chronic pain treatment.
