Characteristics of propriospinal modulation of nociceptive lumbar spinal dorsal horn neurons in the cat.

The segmental and laminar origin of propriospinal antinociceptive systems in the cat spinal cord and the modes to activate them are characterized. The experiments were performed on pentobarbital-anesthetized cats with a high cervical spinalization. Recordings were made from single lumbar spinal dorsal horn neurons responding to noxious radiant skin heating and to innocuous mechanical skin stimuli. The segmental and laminar origin of heterosegmental, propriospinal neurons modulating background activity and nociceptive responses were identified and the conditions to activate them were characterized. Conditioning noxious front paw stimulation and superfusion of the cervical enlargement with L-glutamate, but not with substance P, reduced noxious heat-evoked responses of about 50% of all lumbar neurons tested. Glutamate superfusions of the lower thoracic or upper sacral spinal cord enhanced background activity and reduced nociceptive responses of most lumbar spinal dorsal horn neurons. Superfusions with substance P or somatostatin were ineffective. Glutamate microinjections into the superficial layers of the thoracic, upper lumbar or sacral dorsal horn ipsi- or contralateral to the recording sites or into lamina VIII of the ipsilateral thoracic or upper lumbar cord reduced noxious heat-evoked responses with or without changes in the level of background activity. It is concluded that propriospinal neurons originating from circumscribed areas of the cervical, thoracic, lumbar or sacral spinal cord independently modulate background activity and noxious heat-evoked responses of multireceptive lumbar spinal dorsal horn neurons. The incidence and efficacy of propriospinal antinociceptive stimulation sites was found to be as high as for the classical region of endogenous antinociception, the midbrain periaqueductal gray.