Central Plasticity of Cutaneous Afferents Is Associated with Nociceptive Hyperreflexia after Spinal Cord Injury in Rats

Figure 6

CGRP expressing C fibers in T7 and T13 spinal dorsal horns and overlapping of CGRP expression in IB4⁺ DCN C fibers after T10 hemisection. (a) A representative confocal image shows immunohistochemistry for IB4 injected into DCN C fibers and for CGRP at a T13 dorsal horn. (b) High power view of the representative image demonstrates CGRP expression in IB4⁺ C fibers at the superficial dorsal horn (arrows). (c, d) Immunoreactive areas of CGRP⁺ peptidergic C fibers (c) and percent colabelings of CGRP in IB4⁺ C fibers (d) were measured in T7 and T13 dorsal horns in normal and hemisection SCI animals. Bar graphs show mean values with standard errors of the mean. Crosshatch displays significant segmental differences between T7 and T13 (ANOVA with Tukey’s multiple comparison, ).

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)