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J Neurophysiol (November 14, 2007). doi:10.1152/jn.01049.2007
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Submitted on September 22, 2007
Accepted on November 8, 2007

Characterization of mouse lumbar splanchnic and pelvic nerve urinary bladder mechanosensory afferents

Linjing Xu1 and Gerald F Gebhart2*

1 Pharmacology, Univ. Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, United States
2 Anesthesiol, Neurobiol, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: gebhartgf{at}upmc.edu.

Sensory information from the urinary bladder is conveyed via lumbar splanchnic (LSN) and sacral pelvic (PN) nerves to the spinal cord. In the present report we compared the mechanosensitive properties of single afferent fibers in these two pathways using an in vitro mouse bladder preparation. Mechano-sensitive primary afferents were recorded from the LSN or PN and distinguished based on their response to receptive field stimulation with different mechanical stimuli: probing (160 mg—2 g), stretch (1—25 g) and stroking of the urothelium (10—1000 mg). Four different classes of afferent were recorded from the LSN and PN: serosal, muscular, muscular/urothielial and urothelial. The LSN contained principally serosal and muscular afferents (97% of the total sample) whereas all four afferent classes of afferent were present in the PN (63% of which were muscular afferents). In addition, the respective proportions and receptive field distributions differed between the two pathways. Both low and high threshold stretch-sensitive muscular afferents were present in both pathways, and muscular afferents in the PN were shown to sensitize after exposure to an inflammatory soup cocktail. The LSN and PN pathways contain different populations of mechanosensitive afferents capable of detecting a range of mechanical stimuli and individually tuned to detect the type, magnitude, and duration of the stimulus. This knowledge broadens our understanding of the potential roles these two pathways play in conveying mechanical information from the bladder to the spinal cord.




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