This series of experiments examined the neural mechanisms of analgesia caused by local anaesthetic blockade or selective blockade of N-methyl- scD-aspartate (NMDA) receptors at sites in the rat forebrain. Microinjections of the local anaesthetic lidocaine were made into the medial or lateral thalamic nuclei. The results indicate that the medial thalamic nuclei mediate the expression of pain behavior after peripheral injury, whereas the lateral thalamic nuclei influence phasic withdrawal responses, but are not critical for injury-induced pain responses. Electrolytic lesions made in the lateral thalamus verified this latter finding. Intracranial microinjections of the NMDA antagonist AP5 were used to determine if NMDA receptors in the forebrain participate in pain-related central processing. The intralaminar thalamic nuclei, the striatum and the dentate gyrus of the hippocampal formation were indicated as forebrain sites where antagonism of NMDA-sensitive neural mechanisms significantly reduced the expression of pain-related behavior in the formalin test.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.42094 |
| Date | January 1996 |
| Creators | McKenna, John E. (John Erwin) |
| Contributors | Melzack, Ronald (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Psychology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001558502, proquestno: NQ30336, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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