Loss of the dystrophin-glycoprotein complex from muscle sarcolemma in Duchenne's muscular dystrophy (DMD) renders the membrane susceptible to mechanical injury, leaky to Ca(2+), and disrupts signaling, but the precise mechanism(s) leading to the onset of DMD remain unclear. To assess the role of mechanical injury in the onset of DMD, extensor digitorum longus (EDL) muscles from C57 (control), m...

The use of multiple loose ligations of the rat sciatic nerve has been proposed as a model for the study of allodynia and hyperalgesia. This pain hypersensitivity results from both an increase in the peripheral and central sensitization. The evidence indicating that the development of neuropathic thermal hyperalgesia and mechanical allodynia requires activation of spinal cord NMDA receptors. NMD...

The use of multiple loose ligations of the rat sciatic nerve has been proposed as a model for the study of allodynia and hyperalgesia. This pain hypersensitivity results from both an increase in the peripheral and central sensitization. The evidence indicating that the development of neuropathic thermal hyperalgesia and mechanical allodynia requires activation of spinal cord NMDA receptors. NMD...

The spared nerve injury (SNI) model of neuropathic pain was first developed by Decosterd and Woolf in 2000 in Sprague Dawley rats to enhance reproducibility of injury and behavioral responses resulting from a partial nerve injury. Given the differences in methodology and inconsistent behavioral data published in the SNI model of neuropathic pain in mice, and given that interspecies behavioral c...

Injury is one of the leading causes of death among all people below the age of 45 years. In the United States, traumatic brain injury (TBI) and spinal cord injury (SCI) together are responsible for an estimated 90,000 disabled persons annually. To improve treatment of the patient and thereby decrease the associated mortality, morbidity, and cost, several in vivo models of central nervous system...

Mechanical injury in vivo results in the expression of the inducible form of nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) in vascular smooth muscle cells. However, the role of iNOS in modulating neointima formation after arterial wall injury is not clear. To determine whether the induction of iNOS gene expression promotes or attenuates the neointimal response to injury, we used a murine model of perivascular i...