Department of Anesthesiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of USTC, Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230027, China; Department of Biophysics and Neurobiology, Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease of Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230027, China.
Department of Biophysics and Neurobiology, Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease of Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230027, China.
Cell Rep. 2023 Apr 25;42(4):112290. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2023.112290. Epub 2023 Mar 21.
Light has been shown to relieve pain, but the underlying neural mechanisms remain unknown. Here, we show that low-intensity (200 lux) green light treatment exerts antinociceptive effects through a neural circuit from the visual cortex projecting to the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) in mice. Specifically, viral tracing, in vivo two-photon calcium imaging, and fiber photometry recordings show that green light activated glutamatergic projections from the medial part of the secondary visual cortex (V2M) to GABAergic neurons in the ACC, which drives inhibition of local glutamatergic neurons (V2M→ACC). Optogenetic or chemogenetic activation of the V2M→ACC circuit mimics green-light-induced antinociception in both neuropathic and inflammatory pain model mice. Artificial inhibition of ACC-projecting V2M neurons abolishes the antinociception induced by green light. Taken together, our study shows the V2M-ACC circuit as a potential candidate mediating green-light-induced antinociceptive effects.
光已被证明具有缓解疼痛的作用,但其中的神经机制尚不清楚。在这里,我们表明,低强度(200 勒克斯)绿光治疗通过从视觉皮层投射到小鼠前扣带皮层(ACC)的神经回路发挥镇痛作用。具体来说,病毒追踪、在体双光子钙成像和光纤光度记录表明,绿光激活了来自次级视觉皮层(V2M)中间部分的谷氨酸能投射到 ACC 中的 GABA 能神经元,从而驱动局部谷氨酸能神经元(V2M→ACC)的抑制。V2M→ACC 回路的光遗传学或化学遗传学激活模拟了绿光在神经病理性和炎症性疼痛模型小鼠中诱导的镇痛作用。人工抑制 ACC 投射的 V2M 神经元会消除绿光引起的镇痛作用。综上所述,我们的研究表明 V2M-ACC 回路是介导绿光诱导镇痛作用的潜在候选者。