颈椎术后慢性颈痛严重影响患者术后整体疗效。明确慢性颈痛的发生机制，降低其发生率对提高患者术后疗效有重要意义。研究提示海马与前额叶皮层均参与调控慢性疼痛，但其神经通路和分子生物学机制值得深入探讨。我们的预实验结果显示：术后慢性颈痛阳性组患者脑电前额叶区域γ振荡幅度及其与θ相位耦合度较阴性组患者明显增高，推测患者前额叶皮层功能异常是导致颈椎术后颈部疼痛慢性化的重要机制之一。本研究拟首先通过脑电分析，在人体和动物模型上证实颈椎术后慢性疼痛与前额叶皮层功能异常相关；进而联合应用清醒动物多通道在体电生理记录、化学遗传学、分子生物学等多种技术，在动物模型中深入研究腹侧海马CA1-前额叶皮层边缘下叶通路（vCA1-IL）调控疼痛慢性化和mGluR5受体功能异常导致vCA1-IL通路功能变化的分子机制。以期在神经通路层面阐明疼痛慢性化的生物学机制，为预测颈椎术后颈部疼痛慢性化转归、寻找治疗新靶点提供依据。

Chronic post-surgical neck pain is badly affected the quality of life for patients who diagnosed degenerative cervical disorders. Clarifying the mechanism and reducing the incidence of post-surgical chronic neck pain are very important to improve surgical outcomes. Results from functional MRI and clinical study indicated hippocampus and prefrontal cortex played a key role in modulating chronic pain. However, the neural circuit and molecular biology mechanisms deserve further study. The results of our preliminary experiment showed that, based on the analysis of electroencephalogram, the power of gamma oscillations and the phase-amplitude coupling in the chronic pain positive group was much higher than those in the negative group. Therefore, our hypothesis is that dysfunction of the prefrontal cortex is one of the mechanisms of post-surgical chronic neck pain. In our study, we plan to verify our hypothesis initially by observing the correlation of chronic neck pain with prefrontal cortex function and the characteristics of electrophysiology among the patients underwent surgery in cervical spine in vivo and retest the variations of electroencephalogram analysis in the experimental animal mode. Then we try to verify the molecular mechanisms of chronic pain modulation by neural circuit vCA1-IL in experimental animal mode using multi-channel electrophysiological record, chemical genetic technologies, and molecular biology techniques. The result of this study are useful for clarifyng the biological mechanism of pain chronicity at neural pathway level, predicting the prognosis and looking for the new treatment target of chronic neck pain after surgeries in cervical spine.