Aman Upadhyay, Mark A Gradwell, Thomas J Vajtay, James Conner, Arnab A Sanyal, Chloe Azadegan, Komal R Patel, Joshua K Thackray, Manon Bohic, Fumiyasu Imai, Simon O Ogundare, Yutaka Yoshida, Ishmail Abdus-Saboor, Eiman Azim, Victoria E Abraira
Tactile perception relies on reliable transmission and modulation of low-threshold information as it travels from the periphery to the brain. During pathological conditions, tactile stimuli can aberrantly engage nociceptive pathways leading to the perception of touch as pain, known as mechanical allodynia. Two main drivers of peripheral tactile information, low-threshold mechanoreceptors (LTMRs) and postsynaptic dorsal column neurons (PSDCs), terminate in the brainstem dorsal column nuclei (DCN). Activity within the DRG, spinal cord, and DCN have all been implicated in mediating allodynia, yet the DCN remains understudied at the cellular, circuit, and functional levels compared to the other two...
April 25, 2024: bioRxiv