Dendritic spine dysgenesis contributes to hyperreflexia after spinal cord injury.

Hyperreflexia and spasticity are chronic complications in spinal cord injury (SCI), with limited options for safe and effective treatment. A central mechanism in spasticity is hyperexcitability of the spinal stretch reflex, which presents symptomatically as a velocity-dependent increase in tonic stretch reflexes and exaggerated tendon jerks. In this study we tested the hypothesis that dendritic spine remodeling within motor reflex pathways in the spinal cord contributes to H-reflex dysfunction indicative of spasticity after contusion SCI.

Burn injury-induced mechanical allodynia is maintained by Rac1-regulated dendritic spine dysgenesis.

Although nearly 11 million individuals yearly require medical treatment due to burn injuries and develop clinically intractable pain, burn injury-induced pain is poorly understood, with relatively few studies in preclinical models. To elucidate mechanisms of burn injury-induced chronic pain, we utilized a second-degree burn model, which produces a persistent neuropathic pain phenotype. Rats with burn injury exhibited reduced mechanical pain thresholds ipsilateral to the burn injury.