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The results also provide a key to understanding the more general problem of how the body constitution is represented in the CNS and highlight the role of fetal movements in this respect. It is envisioned that knowledge about the cellular mechanisms underlying the discovered self-organizing mechanism will allow artificial down regulation of pain sensitivity and thereby open up for the development of new therapeutic methods to relieve chronic pain.

Scientists also have found that long-term changes occur in spinal connectivity following neonatal noxious stimulation.

More than ten percent of babies in the US and UK are born prematurely and many have to undergo surgery and intensive care soon after birth, notes Maria Fitzgerald, PhD, of University College of London.

"The nervous system in these infants is still immature and clinical studies have suggested that early pain related to such interventions in premature babies can have long-term consequences upon pain behavior and perception in later life," says Fitzgerald. Until now, little was known about how this might occur.

Fitzgerald and her colleagues have found that that early pain and skin injury at birth changes the properties of sensory neurons in the spinal cord so that they become permanently more 'receptive' to skin stimulation, long after the original wound and pain have gone. Such increased neuronal responsiveness may lead to abnormal sensations in the adult.

In basic neurobiology studies carried out on infant rats, pups had a local skin injury to one hindpaw at birth (under anesthetic) and were then left to grow up normally in their litters for six weeks. They were then anesthetized again and using electrophysiological techniques, neuronal activity in response to touch and pressure of the originally wounded skin area was recorded from the sensory
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Contact: Dawn McCoy
dawn@sfn.org
202-462-6688
Society for Neuroscience
10-Nov-2003