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Electrophysiological property and chemical sensitivity of primary afferent neurons that innervate rat whisker hair follicles

Whisker hair follicles are sensory organs that sense touch and perform tactile discrimination in animals, and they are sites where sensory impulses are initiated when whisker hairs touch an object. The sensory signals are then conveyed by whisker afferent fibers to the brain for sensory perception....

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Autores principales: Ikeda, Ryo, Gu, Jianguo G
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5207362/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27927797
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1744806916685570
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author Ikeda, Ryo
Gu, Jianguo G
author_facet Ikeda, Ryo
Gu, Jianguo G
author_sort Ikeda, Ryo
collection PubMed
description Whisker hair follicles are sensory organs that sense touch and perform tactile discrimination in animals, and they are sites where sensory impulses are initiated when whisker hairs touch an object. The sensory signals are then conveyed by whisker afferent fibers to the brain for sensory perception. Electrophysiological property and chemical sensitivity of whisker afferent fibers, important factors affecting whisker sensory processing, are largely not known. In the present study, we performed patch-clamp recordings from pre-identified whisker afferent neurons in whole-mount trigeminal ganglion preparations and characterized their electrophysiological property and sensitivity to ATP, serotonin and glutamate. Of 97 whisker afferent neurons examined, 67% of them are found to be large-sized (diameter ≥45 µm) cells and 33% of them are medium- to small-sized (diameter <45 µm) cells. Almost every large-sized whisker afferent neuron fires a single action potential but many (40%) small/medium-sized whisker afferent neurons fire multiple action potentials in response to prolonged stepwise depolarization. Other electrophysiological properties including resting membrane potential, action potential threshold, and membrane input resistance are also significantly different between large-sized and small/medium-sized whisker afferent neurons. Most large-sized and many small/medium-sized whisker afferent neurons are sensitive to ATP and/or serotonin, and ATP and/or serotonin could evoke strong inward currents in these cells. In contrast, few whisker afferent neurons are sensitive to glutamate. Our results raise a possibility that ATP and/or serotonin may be chemical messengers involving sensory signaling for different types of rat whisker afferent fibers.
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spelling pubmed-52073622017-01-12 Electrophysiological property and chemical sensitivity of primary afferent neurons that innervate rat whisker hair follicles Ikeda, Ryo Gu, Jianguo G Mol Pain Research Article Whisker hair follicles are sensory organs that sense touch and perform tactile discrimination in animals, and they are sites where sensory impulses are initiated when whisker hairs touch an object. The sensory signals are then conveyed by whisker afferent fibers to the brain for sensory perception. Electrophysiological property and chemical sensitivity of whisker afferent fibers, important factors affecting whisker sensory processing, are largely not known. In the present study, we performed patch-clamp recordings from pre-identified whisker afferent neurons in whole-mount trigeminal ganglion preparations and characterized their electrophysiological property and sensitivity to ATP, serotonin and glutamate. Of 97 whisker afferent neurons examined, 67% of them are found to be large-sized (diameter ≥45 µm) cells and 33% of them are medium- to small-sized (diameter <45 µm) cells. Almost every large-sized whisker afferent neuron fires a single action potential but many (40%) small/medium-sized whisker afferent neurons fire multiple action potentials in response to prolonged stepwise depolarization. Other electrophysiological properties including resting membrane potential, action potential threshold, and membrane input resistance are also significantly different between large-sized and small/medium-sized whisker afferent neurons. Most large-sized and many small/medium-sized whisker afferent neurons are sensitive to ATP and/or serotonin, and ATP and/or serotonin could evoke strong inward currents in these cells. In contrast, few whisker afferent neurons are sensitive to glutamate. Our results raise a possibility that ATP and/or serotonin may be chemical messengers involving sensory signaling for different types of rat whisker afferent fibers. SAGE Publications 2016-12-07 /pmc/articles/PMC5207362/ /pubmed/27927797 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1744806916685570 Text en © The Author(s) 2016 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Research Article
Ikeda, Ryo
Gu, Jianguo G
Electrophysiological property and chemical sensitivity of primary afferent neurons that innervate rat whisker hair follicles
title Electrophysiological property and chemical sensitivity of primary afferent neurons that innervate rat whisker hair follicles
title_full Electrophysiological property and chemical sensitivity of primary afferent neurons that innervate rat whisker hair follicles
title_fullStr Electrophysiological property and chemical sensitivity of primary afferent neurons that innervate rat whisker hair follicles
title_full_unstemmed Electrophysiological property and chemical sensitivity of primary afferent neurons that innervate rat whisker hair follicles
title_short Electrophysiological property and chemical sensitivity of primary afferent neurons that innervate rat whisker hair follicles
title_sort electrophysiological property and chemical sensitivity of primary afferent neurons that innervate rat whisker hair follicles
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5207362/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27927797
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1744806916685570
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