Transduction of Innocuous Thermal Stimuli in Somatosensory Neurons

对于某些神经细胞如何在人体的躯体感觉系统中发出“热”和“冷”的信号，我们仍然知之甚少。尽管基于现代膜生理学方法的其他感觉系统取得了迅速的进展，但这一热传导过程在50多年来一直没有被阐明。人们特别感兴趣的是，特殊的神经细胞是如何处理不会引起疼痛而只是产生热感觉的热刺激的。这项工作利用了最近开发的一项技术，该技术具有足够小的热刺激器来加热单个电池，以及一种在设备的小尖端监测和控制快速热变化的方法，以控制微环境中的温度。目的是在热敏细胞中鉴定无害热刺激传导的分子机制。对体外培养的细胞采用电流钳和电压钳的神经生理学方法。如果这种新的方法能够识别热敏感的膜通道，它将是理解外周温度感觉和没有专门感受器的“自由”神经末梢功能的重大进步。这项工作将对体感生理学、细胞生物物理学和神经科学产生影响，并对了解动物如何对环境中轻微的热变化做出反应是基本的。

We still have only a poor understanding of how certain nerve cells can signal "heat" and "cold" in the body's somatosensory system. This process of thermal transduction has not been clarified for over 50 years, despite rapid advances in other sensory systems based on modern approaches to membrane physiology. It is particularly interesting to know how thermal stimuli that do not cause pain, but simply thermal sensations, are processed by specialized nerve cells. This work utilizes a recently developed technique with a thermal stimulator sufficiently small to heat a single cell, and a way to monitor and control rapid thermal changes at the small tip of the device to control temperature in a micro-environment. The objective is to identify in thermosensitive cells what the molecular mechanisms are for transduction of innocuous thermal stimuli. Neurophysiological methods of current-clamp and voltage-clamp are used on isolated cells in culture. If this novel approach can identify thermally-sensitive membrane channels, it will be a major advance in understanding temperature sensation at the periphery, and the function of "free" nerve endings that have no specialized receptor organs. This work will have impact on somatosensory physiology, on cellular biophysics, and on neuroscience, and be fundamental to understanding how animals respond to slight thermal changes in their environment.