Dataset Information

Gabapentin evoked changes in functional activity in nociceptive regions in the brain of the anaesthetized rat: an fMRI study.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Gabapentin (GBP; 1-(aminomethyl)cyclohexane acetic acid) is used clinically in the treatment of pain. Nevertheless, the sites and mechanisms of action of GBP are poorly defined. Herein, the effects of GBP on brain activation have been studied. EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH: Changes in blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) haemodynamic signal following intravenous infusion of GBP (equivalent to 30 mg kg(-1) p.o., followed by 100 mg kg(-1) p.o.), compared to saline control, were studied in isofluorane anaesthetized rats (n=8 per group). Effects of GBP on mean arterial blood pressure (MAP) were also recorded. RESULTS: Random effect analysis revealed that the lower dose of GBP produced significant (P<0.001) increases in BOLD signal intensity in several brain regions, including the thalamus and periaqueductal grey (PAG), compared to basal. This dose of GBP also produced significant (P<0.001) decreases in BOLD signal intensity in the amygdala and the entorhinal cortex. Increasing the dose of GBP (100 mg kg(-1)) produced significantly greater changes in BOLD signal intensity in several brain regions including the thalamus and PAG. MAP was not significantly altered by GBP, compared to saline. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: GBP had marked positive and negative effects on BOLD signal intensity in a number of brain regions in naïve rats. The activation of key areas involved in nociceptive processing indicate a supraspinal site of action of GBP and this may contribute to its well-described analgesic effects in animal models of pain and clinical studies.

SUBMITTER: Governo RJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2437921 | biostudies-other | 2008 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:The recovery of motor functions is accompanied by brain reorganization, and identifying the inter-hemispheric interaction post stroke will conduce to more targeted treatments. However, the alterations of bi-hemispheric coordination pattern between homologous areas in the whole brain for chronic stroke patients were still unclear. The present study focuses on the functional connectivity (FC) of mirror regions of the whole brain to investigate the inter-hemispheric interaction using a new fMRI method named voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity (VMHC). Thirty left subcortical chronic stroke patients with pure motor deficits and 37 well-matched healthy controls (HCs) underwent resting-state fMRI scans. We employed a VMHC analysis to determine the brain areas showed significant differences between groups in FC between homologous regions, and we explored the relationships between the mean VMHC of each survived area and clinical tests within patient group using Pearson correlation. In addition, the brain areas showed significant correlations between the mean VMHC and clinical tests were defined as the seed regions for whole brain FC analysis. Relative to HCs, patients group displayed lower VMHC in the precentral gyrus, postcentral gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, calcarine gyrus, thalamus, cerebellum anterior lobe, and cerebellum posterior lobe (CPL). Moreover, the VMHC of CPL was positively correlated with the Fugl-Meyer Score of hand (FMA-H), while a negative correlation between illness duration and the VMHC of this region was also detected. Furthermore, we found that when compared with HCs, the right CPL exhibited reduced FC with the left precentral gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, inferior parietal lobule, middle temporal gyrus, thalamus and hippocampus. Our results suggest that the functional coordination across hemispheres is impaired in chronic stroke patients, and increased VMHC of the CPL is significantly associated with higher FMA-H scores. These findings may be helpful in understanding the mechanism of hand deficit after stroke, and the CPL may serve as a target region for hand rehabilitation following stroke.

Dataset Information

Gabapentin evoked changes in functional activity in nociceptive regions in the brain of the anaesthetized rat: an fMRI study.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets