I am a
Home I AM A Search Login

Papers of the Week


Papers: 20 Apr 2019 - 26 Apr 2019


Animal Studies


2019 Jan-Dec


Mol Pain


15

A Novel Neuromodulation Strategy to Enhance the Prefrontal Control to Treat Pain.

Authors

Zhou H, Zhang Q, Martinez E, Dale J, Robinson EJ, Huang D, Wang J
Mol Pain. 2019 Jan-Dec; 15:1744806919845739.
PMID: 31012383.

Abstract

Effective pharmacological treatment options for chronic pain remain very limited, and continued reliance on opioid analgesics has contributed to an epidemic in the U.S. On the other hand, non-pharmacologic neuromodulatory interventions provide a promising avenue for relief of chronic pain without the complications of dependence and addiction. An especially attractive neuromodulation strategy is to optimize endogenous pain regulatory circuits. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is known to provide top-down control of pain, and hence neuromodulation methods that selectively enhance the activities in this brain region during pain episodes have the potential to provide analgesia. In this study, we designed a low-frequency (2 Hz) electrical stimulation protocol to provide temporally and spatially specific enhancement of the prefrontal control of pain in rats. We showed that low-frequency electrical stimulation of the prelimbic region of the PFC relieved both sensory and affective responses to acute pain in naïve rats. Furthermore, we found that low-frequency electrical stimulation of the PFC also attenuated mechanical allodynia in a rat model of chronic pain. Together, our findings demonstrated that low-frequency electrical stimulation of the PFC represents a promising new method of neuromodulation to inhibit pain.