Spinal autofluorescent flavoprotein imaging in a rat model of nerve injury-induced pain and the effect of spinal cord stimulation.

Nerve injury may cause neuropathic pain, which involves hyperexcitability of spinal dorsal horn neurons. The mechanisms of action of spinal cord stimulation (SCS), an established treatment for intractable neuropathic pain, are only partially understood. We used Autofluorescent Flavoprotein Imaging (AFI) to study changes in spinal dorsal horn metabolic activity.

Spinal cord stimulation for complex regional pain syndrome type I: a prospective cohort study with long-term follow-up.

Objectives: Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is an effective treatment for intractable complex regional pain syndrome type I pain. Long-term data are scarce on effectiveness, degree of pain relief, predictors, and complications.

Materials And Methods: From 1997 to 2008, 84 consecutive patients who received an implanted SCS system after positive test stimulation were included in the prospective study.

Experimental spinal cord stimulation and neuropathic pain: mechanism of action, technical aspects, and effectiveness.

Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is a valuable treatment for chronic intractable neuropathic pain. Although SCS has gone through a technological revolution over the last four decades, the neurophysiologic and biochemical mechanisms of action have only been partly elucidated. Animal experimental work has provided some evidence for spinal as well as supraspinal mechanisms of neuropathic pain relief of SCS.

Increased efficacy of early spinal cord stimulation in an animal model of neuropathic pain.

Although spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is an established treatment for chronic neuropathic pain, pain relief is still not successful in a large group of patients. We suggest that the success of SCS may be related to the timing of SCS during the development of chronic neuropathic pain. We therefore compared the effect of SCS applied after 24h of neuropathic pain (early SCS) and after 16days of neuropathic pain (late SCS).

Brush-evoked allodynia predicts outcome of spinal cord stimulation in complex regional pain syndrome type 1.

Background: Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) has proven to be an effective however an invasive and relatively expensive treatment of chronic Complex Regional Pain Syndrome type 1(CRPS-1). Furthermore, in one third of CRPS-1 patients, SCS treatment fails to give significant pain relief and 32-38% of treated patients experience complications. The aim of the current study was to develop effective prognostic factors for prediction of successful outcome of SCS.

Spinal cord stimulation induces c-Fos expression in the dorsal horn in rats with neuropathic pain after partial sciatic nerve injury.

Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is an established treatment for intractable neuropathic pain, especially CRPS-1. The mechanisms of action of SCS have only been partly elucidated and include suppression of the hyper-excitability of the Wide Dynamic Range neurons and a GABA increase in the dorsal horn. In the present study we demonstrate an increase of c-Fos immunoreactive cells in the dorsal horn after SCS, suggesting early cellular activation that may preclude earlier described electrophysiological and biochemical changes in the dorsal horn after SCS.