High Resolution Mapping of Pain in the Dorsal Horn

描述(申请人提供)：近年来，疼痛研究在从基因到行为的水平上取得了革命性的进展。然而，已被证明特别抵抗分析的一个基本组织水平是第一中央中继区脊髓/延髓背角内潜在的痛传递和调制的内在电路。最近，一项新的技术被开发出来，这使得首次有可能以非凡的空间分辨率剖析紧密排列的神经元件突触连接的精细组织。这项名为扫描激光光刺激的技术将是首次揭示与疼痛有关的背角回路的内在组织的理想方法。然而，这项技术的初始设置相当昂贵和耗时，到目前为止，它的使用几乎完全限于大脑皮层，主要是在视觉系统中。我请求两年的支持，以建立和收集扫描激光光刺激的初始数据，以研究背角的疼痛(伤害性)回路。将这项技术应用于疼痛系统将首次开启对背角回路可塑性的整个研究领域的分析，并允许解决自现代疼痛研究时代开始和疼痛调制门控理论提出以来一直争论不休的问题。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In recent years, pain research has made revolutionary advances at levels ranging from genes to behavior. However, one basic level of organization that has proved particularly resistant to analysis is the intrinsic circuitry underlying pain transmission and modulation within the first central relay area, the spinal/medullary dorsal horn. Recently a novel technique was developed that has made it possible for the first time to dissect the fine organization of the synaptic connectivity of closely spaced neural elements with extraordinary spatial resolution. This technique, scanning laser photostimulation, would be ideal for revealing for the first time the intrinsic organization of the dorsal horn circuitry involved in pain. However, the initial setting up of this technique is fairly expensive and time-consuming, and its use has so far been almost entirely restricted to cerebral cortex, primarily in the visual system. I request 2 years of support to set up and collect initial data with scanning laser photostimulation to study pain (nociceptive) circuitry in the dorsal horn. The application of this technique to the pain system will open up to analysis for the first time an entire field of investigation into plasticity of dorsal horn circuitry and allow the resolution of questions that have been debated since the start of the modern era of pain research and the proposal of the gate-control theory of pain modulation.