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Summary: Neuropathic pain can lead to depression, insomnia,
depressed immune function, changes in eating patterns, and
other long-term deleterious effects. In previous studies we
have shown that chronic pain patients are impaired on an
emotional decision making task, have dorsolateral prefrontal
cortex atrophy and show medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC)
hyperactivity. Here the hypothesis is that chronic pain
produces cortical changes that interfere with cortical
networks involved with emotional associative learning. We
test this hypothesis by comparing responses on conditioned
fear and sucrose reward in neuropathic (spared nerve injury)
and inflammatory (carrageenan) rats, along with SHAM
controls.
INTRODUCTION
Adult Sprague-Dawley rats (250-300 g) were used.
Spared Nerve Injury(SNI)
Tibial and peritoneal branches are cut, leaving the sural branch of
the sciatic intact (Decosterd and Woolf, 2000). In SHAM controls
the sciatic nerve is exposed but not manipulated.
Carrageenan Treatment
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