Journal
NATURE BIOTECHNOLOGY
Volume 39, Issue 2, Pages -Publisher
NATURE RESEARCH
DOI: 10.1038/s41587-020-0673-2
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Funding
- Sir Henry Dale Fellowship - Wellcome Trust [109372/Z/15/Z]
- Sir Henry Dale Fellowship - Royal Society [109372/Z/15/Z]
- European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the Marie Skodowska-Curie grant [754354]
- Bertarelli Foundation
- Swiss National Science Foundation [BSCGI0_1578000]
- National Institutes of Health [R35NS105076]
- Wellcome Trust [109372/Z/15/Z] Funding Source: Wellcome Trust
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Research shows that activation of pain-triggering sensory neurons induces an immune response.
Activation of nociceptor sensory neurons by noxious stimuli both triggers pain and increases capillary permeability and blood flow to produce neurogenic inflammation(1,2), but whether nociceptors also interact with the immune system remains poorly understood. Here we report a neurotechnology for selective epineural optogenetic neuromodulation of nociceptors and demonstrate that nociceptor activation drives both protective pain behavior and inflammation. The wireless optoelectronic system consists of sub-millimeter-scale light-emitting diodes embedded in a soft, circumneural sciatic nerve implant, powered and driven by a miniaturized head-mounted control unit. Photostimulation of axons in freely moving mice that express channelrhodopsin only in nociceptors resulted in behaviors characteristic of pain, reflecting orthodromic input to the spinal cord. It also led to immune reactions in the skin in the absence of inflammation and potentiation of established inflammation, a consequence of the antidromic activation of nociceptor peripheral terminals. These results reveal a link between nociceptors and immune cells, which might have implications for the treatment of inflammation. An optogenetic study shows that activation of pain-triggering sensory neurons induces an immune response.
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