Davidson Steve, Zhang Xijing, Khasabov Sergey G, Simone Donald A, Giesler Glenn J
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA.
Nat Neurosci. 2009 May;12(5):544-6. doi: 10.1038/nn.2292. Epub 2009 Apr 6.
Itch is relieved by scratching, but the neural mechanisms that are responsible for this are unknown. Spinothalamic tract (STT) neurons respond to itch-producing agents and transmit pruritic information to the brain. We observed that scratching the cutaneous receptive field of primate STT neurons produced inhibition during histamine-evoked activity but not during spontaneous activity or activity evoked by a painful stimulus, suggesting that scratching inhibits the transmission of itch in the spinal cord in a state-dependent manner.
搔抓可缓解瘙痒，但其中的神经机制尚不清楚。脊髓丘脑束（STT）神经元对致痒剂作出反应，并将瘙痒信息传递至大脑。我们观察到，搔抓灵长类动物STT神经元的皮肤感受野在组胺诱发的活动期间产生抑制作用，但在自发活动或疼痛刺激诱发的活动期间则不然，这表明搔抓以状态依赖的方式抑制脊髓中瘙痒的传递。
