It has been proposed that death of inhibitory interneurons in the dorsal horn contributes to the neuropathic pain that follows partial nerve injury. In this study, we have used two approaches to test whether there is neuronal death in the dorsal horn in the spared nerve injury (SNI) model. We performed a stereological analysis of the packing density of neurons in laminas I-III 4 weeks after ope...

Progressive tactile hypersensitivity (PTH) manifesting after sciatic nerve crush and spared nerve injury (SNI) are two distinct rodent experimental models of neuropathic pain. PTH develops months after recovery from the nerve crush in response to repeated intermittent low-threshold mechanical stimulation of the reinnervated sciatic nerve skin territory and represents a model of stimulus-induced...

INTRODUCTION This study compared canal and isthmus debridement efficacies between side-vented needle irrigation (SNI) and continuous ultrasonic irrigation (CUI) in the mesial root of mandibular first molars with narrow isthmuses using a closed-canal design. METHODS Micro-computed tomography scanning was used to select 20 teeth, each containing a narrow isthmus. Each root was sealed at the ape...

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES To test the validity and reliability of the Spiritual Needs Inventory (SNI) in measuring the spiritual needs of informal caregivers of patients with cancer in hospice home care. DESIGN A subanalysis of a longitudinal, randomized hospice clinical trial. SETTING Two hospices in the southwestern United States. SAMPLE 410 informal caregivers of patients with cancer in hospi...

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES To develop and test an instrument to measure the spiritual needs of patients near the end of life. DESIGN Instrumentation methodology. SETTING One inpatient and five outpatient hospices. SAMPLE 62 female and 38 male hospice patients with a mean age of 67 years; most were Caucasian, Protestant, and dying of cancer. METHODS Items for the Spiritual Needs Inventory (SNI) ...

The present study investigated the role of metabotropic glutamate receptor subtype 8 (mGluR8) in the dorsal striatum (DS) in modulating thermonociception and rostral ventromedial medulla (RVM) ON and OFF cell activities in conditions of neuropathic pain induced by spared nerve injury (SNI) of the sciatic nerve in rats. The role of DS mGluR8 on mechanical allodynia was also investigated. Intra-D...

BACKGROUND Clinical studies have shown that about two-thirds of patients with chronic pain suffer from short-term memory (STM) deficits and an effective drug for treatment of the neurological disorder is lacking at present. OBJECTIVE We tested whether chronic oral application of magnesium L-threonate (MgT), which has been shown to improve memory in normal and aging animals by elevating Mg2+ i...

The spared nerve injury (SNI) model of peripheral neuropathy produces a robust and long-lasting hypersensitivity. Previous behavioural studies suggest that brainstem-spinal pathways originating in or relaying through the rostroventromedial medulla (RVM) contribute to neuropathic hypersensitivity. We determined whether SNI induces changes in response properties of RVM neurons that might influenc...

To study the neuropathic pain mechanism, various behavioral responses of animals in to different neuropathic models were considered. Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats weighing 230-280 g were used. Anesthesia was initially induced with pentobarbital I.P. (50 mg/kg). These models included (1): chronic constriction injury (CCI) by loose ligation of the sciatic nerve (2) Spared nerve injury (SNI) by a...