[Evoked responses of visceral nociceptive neurons in cat anterior cingulate gyrus revealed by intracellular recording techniques].

With intracellular recording techniques, we investigated evoked responses and electrophysiological properties of neurons in anterior cingulate gyrus (ACG) to stimulating greater splanchnic nerve (GSN) in cats. Among 461 neurons, 176 were stimulus-relative and 285 stimulus-irrelative. According to the characteristics of the evoked responses, stimulus-relative neurons were classified into specific visceral nociceptive neurons (SVNNs, 64.77%), non-specific visceral nociceptive neurons (NSVNNs, 19.32%) and non-visceral nociceptive neurons (NVNNs, 15.91%). Modes of the evoked responses could be excitatory, inhibitory, or mixed ones. The results suggest that ACG may be one of the representative areas of the GSN afferent pathway, and there exist two kinds of VNNs in ACG, which may be differently involved in pain modulation.