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Brief Report |
Correspondence to: Min Zhuo, Department of Anesthesiology, Washington University School of Medicine, Campus Box 8054, 660 S. Euclid Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63110. Tel:(314) 747-0416 Fax:(314) 362-8571 E-mail:zhuom{at}morpheus.wustl.edu.
Hippocampal neurons fire spikes when an animal is at a particular location or performs certain behaviors in a particular place, providing a cellular basis for hippocampal involvement in spatial learning and memory. In a natural environment, spatial memory is often associated with potentially dangerous sensory experiences such as noxious or painful stimuli. The central sites for such pain-associated memory or plasticity have not been identified. Here we present evidence that excitatory glutamatergic synapses within the CA1 region of the hippocampus may play a role in storing pain-related information. Peripheral noxious stimulation induced excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs) in CA1 pyramidal cells in anesthetized animals. Tissue/nerve injury caused a rapid increase in the level of the immediate-early gene product Egr1 (also called NGFI-A, Krox24, or zif/268) in hippocampal CA1 neurons. In parallel, synaptic potentiation induced by a single tetanic stimulation (100 Hz for 1 s) was enhanced after the injury. This enhancement of synaptic potentiation was absent in mice lacking Egr1. Our data suggest that Egr1 may act as an important regulator of pain-related synaptic plasticity within the hippocampus.
Key Words: Egr1, NMDA, LTP, pain, hippocampus
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