AI Article Synopsis
- Itch has both feelings and sensory parts that make each other worse, but scientists are still figuring out how the brain handles both.
- A specific brain area called the anterior insular cortex (AIC) gets activated when something causes itching, and this can make us feel bad and intensify the itch.
- The study shows that there is a path in the brain (AIC → dBNST) that connects the feeling of itch and the bad emotions it brings, helping us understand how the brain processes these sensations together.
Article Abstract
Itch encompasses both sensory and emotional dimensions, with the two dimensions reciprocally exacerbating each other. However, whether a shared neural circuit mechanism governs both dimensions remains elusive. Here, we report that the anterior insular cortex (AIC) is activated by both histamine-dependent and -independent itch stimuli. The activation of AIC elicits aversive emotion and exacerbates pruritogen-induced itch sensation and aversion. Mechanistically, AIC excitatory neurons project to the GABAergic neurons in the dorsal bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (dBNST). Manipulating the activity of the AIC → dBNST pathway affects both itch sensation and itch-induced aversion. Our study discovers the shared neural circuit (AIC → dBNST pathway) underlying the itch sensation and aversion, highlights the critical role of the AIC as a central hub for the itch processing, and provides a framework to understand the neural mechanisms underlying the sensation and emotion interaction.
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| http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2024.02.060 | DOI Listing |
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