The central projection of masticatory afferent fibers to the trigeminal sensory nuclear complex and upper cervical spinal cord.

Retrograde and anterograde transport of horseradish peroxidase-wheat germ agglutinin (HRP-WGA) conjugate was used to study the organization of primary afferent neurons innervating the masticatory muscles. HRP applied to the nerves of jaw-closing muscles--the deep temporal (DT), masseter (Ma), and medial pterygoid (MP)--labeled cells in the trigeminal ganglion and the mesencephalic trigeminal nucleus (Vmes), whereas HRP applied to nerves of the jaw-opening muscles--anterior digastric (AD) and mylohyoid (My)--labeled cells only in the trigeminal ganglion. Cell bodies innervating the jaw-closing muscles were found with greater frequency in the intermediate region of the mandibular subdivision, while somata supplying the jaw-opening muscles were predominant posterolaterally. The distribution of their somatic sizes was unimodal and limited to a subpopulation of smaller cells. Projections of the muscle afferents of ganglionic origin to the trigeminal sensory nuclear complex (TSNC) were confined primarily to the caudal half of pars interpolaris (Vi), and the medullary and upper cervical dorsal horns. In the Vi, Ma, MP, AD, and My nerves terminated in the lateral-most part of the nucleus with an extensive overlap in projections, save for the DT nerve, which projected to the interstitial nucleus or paratrigeminal nucleus. In the medullary and upper cervical dorsal horns, the main terminal fields of individual branches were confined to laminae I/V, but the density of the terminals in lamina V was very sparse. The rostrocaudal extent of the terminal field in lamina I differed among the muscle afferents of origin, whereas in the mediolateral or dorsoventral axis, a remarkable overlap in projections was noted between or among muscle afferents. The terminals of DT afferents were most broadly extended from the rostral level of the pars caudalis to the C3 segment, whereas the MP nerve showed limited projection to the middle one-third of the pars caudalis. Terminal fields of the Ma, AD, and My nerves appeared in the caudal two-thirds of the pars caudalis including the first two cervical segments, the caudal half of the pars caudalis and the C1 segment, and in the caudal part of the pars caudalis including the rostral C1 segment, respectively. This rostrocaudal arrangement in the projections of muscle nerves, which corresponds to the anteroposterior length of the muscles and their positions, indicates that representation of the masticatory muscles in lamina I reflects an onion-skin organization. These results suggest that primary muscle afferent neurons of ganglionic origin primarily mediate muscle pain.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)