Long-Term Imaging of Neuronal and Non-Neuronal Spinal Cord Cells in the Awake, Behaving Mouse

Despite decades of study of the properties of spinal cord neurons that process nociceptive information (1) with very few exceptions studies were performed in anesthetized animals, (2) cannot follow the activity of the same genetically-defined population of neurons over time; and (3) cannot provide a correlate of activity changes over time with behavioral endpoints of chronic pain development or in response to existing and novel pain-relieving analgesics. This presentation will describe a spinal cord calcium imaging preparation in which it is possible to record from spinal cord neurons over time, in the awake, behaving mouse. This preparation will greatly facilitate our understanding of the spinal cord circuit activity changes that occur in the setting of tissue or nerve injury and that contribute to inflammatory and neuropathic chronic pain, respectively. This new approach also permits study of microglial cell responsiveness over time before and after injury.