"Neural circuits and therapeutics for pain unpleasantness and its cognitive modulation"
The perception of pain is a multidimensional sensory and emotional/affective experience arising from distributed brain activity. However, the involved brain regions are not specific for pain. Thus, how the cortex distinguishes nociception from other aversive and salient sensory stimuli remains elusive. Additionally, the consequences of the plastic changes that induce chronic neuropathic pain on sensory processing have not been characterized properly. Using in vivo miniscope calcium imaging with cellular resolution in freely moving mice, we studied the principles of nociceptive and sensory coProf. Dr. Thomas Nevian, from the University of Bern, Department of Physiologyding in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a region essential for pain processing. We found that population activity, not single-cell responses, allowed discriminating noxious from other sensory stimuli, ruling out the existence of nociception-specific neurons. Additionally, single-cell stimulus selectivity was highly dynamic over time, but stimulus representation at the population level remained stable. Peripheral nerve injury-induced chronic neuropathic pain led to dysfunctional encoding of sensory events by exacerbation of responses to innocuous stimuli and impairment of pattern separation and stimulus classification, which were restored by analgesic treatment. Furthermore, I will discuss the influence of afferent pathways to the ACC that contribute to nociceptive processing and behavioral decision-making in pain.
Prof. Dr. Thomas Nevian
University of Bern
Department of Physiology