ArticleFrontiers in cellular neuroscience2018
Inhibition of the Prefrontal Projection to the Nucleus Accumbens Enhances Pain Sensitivity and Affect.
Article in Frontiers in cellular neuroscience, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 41 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
41 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 68 citations in OpenAlex.
- Brain functional changes following spinal manipulation therapy in patients with lumbar disc herniation and chronic low back pain: a scoping review.Frontiers in neurology · 2025Pooled it
- The medial orbitofrontal cortex mediates neuropathic pain and anxiodepressive-like behaviors via two distinct pathways.The journal of headache and pain · 2026Article
- A molecularly defined basalo-prefrontal-thalamic circuit regulates sensory and affective dimensions of pain in male mice.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Dorsal root ganglion neuromodulation restores accumbal gate to inhibit mechanical allodynia.The journal of headache and pain · 2026Article
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- Exploring electroencephalographic chronic pain biomarkers: a mega-analysis.EBioMedicine · 2025Article
- Article
- Default mode network-basal ganglia network connectivity predicts the transition to postherpetic neuralgia.IBRO neuroscience reports · 2025Article
- Mimicking opioid analgesia in cortical pain circuits.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- A Neural Circuit From Paraventricular Nucleus of the Thalamus to the Nucleus Accumbens Mediates Inflammatory Pain in Mice.Brain and behavior · 2025Article
- Role of Neural Circuits in Cognitive Impairment.Neurochemical research · 2024Review
- Altered structure and functional connection of subcortical gray matter in female patients with classical trigeminal neuralgia.Brain imaging and behavior · 2024Article
- Targeting Prefrontal Cortex Dysfunction in Pain.The Journal of pharmacology and experimental therapeutics · 2024Review
- Prokineticin-2 Participates in Chronic Constriction Injury-Triggered Neuropathic Pain and Anxiety via Regulated by NF-κB in Nucleus Accumbens Shell in Rats.Molecular neurobiology · 2024Article
- Restoration of the Activity of the Prefrontal Cortex to the Nucleus Accumbens Core Pathway Relieves Fentanyl-Induced Hyperalgesia in Male Rats.Journal of pain research · 2024Article
- Oxycodone withdrawal induces HDAC1/HDAC2-dependent transcriptional maladaptations in the reward pathway in a mouse model of peripheral nerve injury.Nature neuroscience · 2023Article
- Oxytocin promotes prefrontal population activity via the PVN-PFC pathway to regulate pain.Neuron · 2023Article
- Excitatory Projections from the Prefrontal Cortex to Nucleus Accumbens Core D1-MSNs and κ Opioid Receptor Modulate Itch-Related Scratching Behaviors.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2023Article
- Review
- Brain Structural and Functional Alterations in Multiple Sclerosis-Related Fatigue: A Systematic Review.Neurology international · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Cortical mechanisms that regulate acute or chronic pain remain poorly understood. The prefrontal cortex (PFC) exerts crucial control of sensory and affective behaviors. Recent studies show that activation of the projections from the PFC to the nucleus accumbens (NAc), an important pathway in the brain's reward circuitry, can produce inhibition of both sensory and affective components of pain. However, it is unclear whether this circuit is endogenously engaged in pain regulation. To answer this question, we disrupted this circuit using an optogenetic strategy. We expressed halorhodopsin in pyramidal neurons from the PFC, and then selectively inhibited the axonal projection from these neurons to neurons in the NAc core. Our results reveal that inhibition of the PFC or its projection to the NAc, heightens both sensory and affective symptoms of acute pain in naïve rats. Inhibition of this corticostriatal pathway also increased nociceptive sensitivity and the aversive response in a chronic neuropathic pain model. Finally, corticostriatal inhibition resulted in a similar aversive phenotype as chronic pain. These results strongly suggest that the projection from the PFC to the NAc plays an important role in endogenous pain regulation, and its impairment contributes to the pathology of chronic pain.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.