Transduction of Innocuous Thermal Stimuli in Somatosensory Neurons

对于某些神经细胞如何在身体的体感系统中发出“热”和“冷”的信号，我们仍然知之甚少。尽管基于膜生理学的现代方法在其他感觉系统方面取得了快速进展，但热转导过程在50多年来一直没有得到澄清。特别有趣的是，了解不引起疼痛而仅仅是热感觉的热刺激是如何被专门的神经细胞处理的。这项工作利用了最近开发的一种技术，该技术具有足够小的热刺激器来加热单个细胞，以及一种监测和控制设备小尖端快速热变化的方法，以控制微环境中的温度。目的是确定在热敏细胞什么分子机制是转导无害的热刺激。采用电流钳和电压钳神经生理学方法对离体细胞进行培养。如果这种新方法可以识别热敏膜通道，这将是理解外周温度感觉和“自由”神经末梢功能的重大进展，这些神经末梢没有专门的受体器官。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，并对理解动物如何对环境中的轻微热变化作出反应至关重要。

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.