BACKGROUND The dorsal root ganglion (DRG), in the not too distant past, had been thought of as a passive organ not involved in the development of abnormal aberrent neuropathic pain (NP), but merely metabolically "supporting" physiologic functions between the peripheral nervous system (PNS) and the central nervous system (CNS). New information regarding metabolic change within the DRG has dispel...

Intracellular recording techniques have been used to provide information on the identity of excitatory sensory transmitters released at synapses formed between dorsal root ganglion (DRG) and dorsal horn neurons maintained in cell culture. Explants of embryonic rat DRG were added to dissociated cultures of embryonic dorsal horn neurons and synaptic potentials were recorded intracellularly from d...

Background and Objective: Sensory neurons have critical role in improvement of functional outcome of any neuroprotective strategy. The herbal medicine Nepeta menthoides has been reported to have anti-apoptotic effect on axotomized spinal motoneurons. In the present study, the putative neuroprotective effect of Nepeta menthoides on the axotomized dorsal root ganglion sensory neurons in neonate r...

S everal ways of promoting nerve regeneration have been discovered including the use of biochemical substances such as growth factors, hormones and physical factors such as electric currents, and magnetic fields. As first reported by Levi-Montalcini, NGF was identified by promoting growth of neurites from primary cultures of chick explants by using visually scored neurite growth. Recently, the ...

BACKGROUND Itch is one of the major somatosensory modalities. Some recent findings have proposed that gastrin releasing peptide (Grp) is expressed in a subset of dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons and functions as a selective neurotransmitter for transferring itch information to spinal cord interneurons. However, expression data from public databases and earlier literatures indicate that Grp mR...

Inhibitors of the Na+/H+ exchanger isoform 1 (NHE-1) have been associated with peripheral neuropathy in rats and dogs. Recent studies suggest that NHE-1 plays an important role in mediating neuronal excitability. To investigate potential NHE-1-mediated mechanisms contributing to neuronal toxicity, we studied the effects of NHE-1 inhibitors on nerve and dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons isolate...

Ectopic spontaneous activity originated from the injured dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons in rats was recorded through single dorsal root fiber. The firing patterns induced by veratridine and aconitine, inhibitors of inactivation gate of sodium channel operating on different binding sites, were compared. In the same neuron, veratridine (1.5 approximately 5.0 micromol/L) caused slow wave oscil...

Axotomy of the peripheral axon of dorsal root ganglion (DRG) cells is known to result in chromatolysis and changes in protein synthesis in DRG cells. We investigated whether a stimulus produced by peripheral branch axotomy would affect the regenerative properties of both the central and peripheral axon of the DRG cell equally. To examine this question, a conditioning crush lesion was made dista...

Sensory neurons in the dorsal root ganglion (DRG) specifically project axons to central and peripheral targets according to their sensory modality. However, the molecular mechanisms that govern sensory neuron differentiation and the axonal projections remain unclear. The Runt-related transcription factors, Runx1 and Runx3, are expressed in DRG neuronal subpopulations, suggesting that they might...