A central neural circuit for itch sensation.

Science

Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 320 Yue-Yang Road, Shanghai 200031, China.

Published: August 2017

Although itch sensation is an important protective mechanism for animals, chronic itch remains a challenging clinical problem. Itch processing has been studied extensively at the spinal level. However, how itch information is transmitted to the brain and what central circuits underlie the itch-induced scratching behavior remain largely unknown. We found that the spinoparabrachial pathway was activated during itch processing and that optogenetic suppression of this pathway impaired itch-induced scratching behaviors. Itch-mediating spinal neurons, which express the gastrin-releasing peptide receptor, are disynaptically connected to the parabrachial nucleus via glutamatergic spinal projection neurons. Blockade of synaptic output of glutamatergic neurons in the parabrachial nucleus suppressed pruritogen-induced scratching behavior. Thus, our studies reveal a central neural circuit that is critical for itch signal processing.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aaf4918DOI Listing

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