The Journal of Neurophysiology Vol. 81 No. 2 February 1999, pp. 479-493
Copyright ©1999 by the American Physiological Society

Cardiovascular and Neuronal Responses to Head Stimulation Reflect Central Sensitization and Cutaneous Allodynia in a Rat Model of Migraine

 ¹Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center,  ²Department of Neurobiology, and the  ³Program in Neuroscience, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115

Reduction of the threshold of cardiovascular and neuronal responses to facial and intracranial stimulation reflects central sensitization and cutaneous allodynia in a rat model of migraine. Current theories propose that migraine pain is caused by chemical activation of meningeal perivascular fibers. We previously found that chemical irritation of the dura causes trigeminovascular fibers innervating the dura and central trigeminal neurons receiving convergent input from the dura and skin to respond to low-intensity mechanical and thermal stimuli that previously induced minimal or no responses. One conclusion of these studies was that when low- and high-intensity stimuli induce responses of similar magnitude in nociceptive neurons, low-intensity stimuli must be as painful as the high-intensity stimuli. The present study investigates in anesthetized rats the significance of the changes in the responses of central trigeminal neurons (i.e., in nucleus caudalis) by correlating them with the occurrence and type of the simultaneously recorded cardiovascular responses. Before chemical stimulation of the dura, simultaneous increases in neuronal firing rates and blood pressure were induced by dural indentation with forces 2.35 g and by noxious cutaneous stimuli such as pinching the skin and warming >46°C. After chemical stimulation, similar neuronal responses and blood pressure increases were evoked by much smaller forces for dural indentation and by innocuous cutaneous stimuli such as brushing the skin and warming it to 43°C. The onsets of neuronal responses preceded the onsets of depressor responses by 1.7 s and pressor responses by 4.0 s. The duration of neuronal responses was 15 s, whereas the duration of depressor responses was shorter (5.8 s) and pressor responses longer (22.7 s) than the neuronal responses. We conclude that the facilitated cardiovascular and central trigeminal neuronal responses to innocuous stimulation of the skin indicate that when dural stimulation induces central sensitization, innocuous stimuli are as nociceptive as noxious stimuli had been before dural stimulation and that a similar process might occur during the development of cutaneous allodynia during migraine.

0022-3077/99 $5.00 Copyright © 1999 The American Physiological Society