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DISCOVERY! |
Université dAuvergne Clermont 1, INSERM E 0216, U.F.R. dOdontologie, Faculté de Chirurgie Dentaire, 11, bd Charles-de-Gaulle, 63000 Clermont-Ferrand, France; alain.woda{at}u-clermont1.fr
KEY WORDS: trigeminal nucleus nociception oralis subnucleus orofacial pain
| INTRODUCTION |
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| ENTERING THE SCIENTIFIC WORLD AND DISCOVERING A PARADOX: NO NOCICEPTIVE NEURON IN THE "TRIGEMINAL PAIN CENTER"! |
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Denise Albe-Fessard and I were joined by another young dentist, Jean Azerad. Dr. Albe-Fessard was at the top of her career, while J. Azerad and I were at the very beginning, but for the two years we spent recording neurones from the full rostrocaudal extent of the trigeminal sensory complex, she was fully involved in the experiments, even when they ended late at night. Also, her curiosity about a problem that seemed marginal to nociception studies was not faked. This impressed me for life.
We made two important findings (Woda et al., 1977; Azerad et al., 1982). First, it appeared that the isolated nociceptive neurones that had been described in the caudal parts of the complex (Gordon et al., 1961; Kruger and Michel, 1962) were part of a larger group. This indicated that nociception in the caudalis was organized on the same model as in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord, with a group of nociceptive neurones sending their axons to the nociceptive ascending pathways (Wall, 1973; Mosso and Kruger, 1972; Yokota, 1975; Price et al., 1976; Besson and Chaouch, 1987). The similarity with the spinal dorsal horn was confirmed by others (Sessle, 1987), and the caudalis was alternatively called the medullary dorsal horn (Gobel et al., 1981). Subsequently, the caudalis was extensively used for the study of general problems relevant to nociception (Dubner and Bennett, 1983; Villanueva and Le Bars, 1985; Oliveras et al., 1986; Bouhassira et al., 1987; Chen and Huang, 1992). The second finding was totally unexpected and directed our interest to the trigeminal sensory complex itself. A second group of nociceptive neurones activated from the orofacial area was observed rostrally in the oralis.
This discovery confirmed some of the glimpses that had already been obtained in previous work (Wall and Taub, 1962; Eisenman et al., 1963), but it also shed light on the unexplained results that we had previously obtained with Jean Azerad when we worked under the direction of Jean-Marie Besson and Gisèle Guilbaud. We had just finished an experiment on the jaw-opening nociceptive reflex in the cat in which tractotomy was intended to remove the afferent messages from the caudalis (Azerad and Woda, 1976). The expected result, the abolition of the nociceptive tooth-pulp-induced jaw-opening reflex, was never observed. The results of micro-electrode recordings clarified the persistence of the nociceptive reflex after tractotomy, since it suggested that oralis nociceptive neurones were also involved in oro-facial nociception. This important insight had been made possible thanks to a group of famous researchersone scientist, D. Albe-Fessard, one pharmacologist, JM. Besson, and one physician, G. Guilbaudwho were generous enough to spend considerable time and energy to investigate a new topic proposed by two dental students. These seminal years gave us the bases of neurophysiological techniques that became essential for the future development of this research in the environment of a dental faculty.
| FOUNDING A NEW GROUP BY ASSESSING THE ROLE OF THE ORALIS IN OROFACIAL NOCICEPTION |
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A laboratory was progressively built. The results of the experiments done in Paris were extended. Nociceptive oralis neurones were the medium for the transmission of scientific methodology to a dental lab. Simultaneously, it became obvious that the oralis convergent neurones shared all the properties of other neurones of the deep spinal dorsal horn or of deep layers of the caudalis (Dallel et al., 1990, 1996; Hu et al., 1992; Raboisson et al., 1995). Another crucial advance was obtained through co-operation with Barry Sessles group in Toronto. Several bilateral summer visits to Clermont-Ferrand and Toronto over many years helped describe trigeminal cell responses among which was plasticity, a property expressed by both caudalis and oralis convergent neurones (Hu et al., 1986, 1992, 1999; Parada et al., 1997; Dallel et al., 1999; Woda et al., 2001). This property, by which nociceptive messages coming from the periphery are modified in a lasting way, is one of the basic features of chronic pain (Woda and Pionchon, 2001).
| A GROWING GROUP MUST INCREASE ITS "KNOW-HOW". |
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A further step had to be brought about by demonstration of the existence of contested ascending projections from the oralis to the upper levels of the brain, e.g., the thalamus and cortical cortex. This implicated the need for immunocytochemical studies that were not controlled by the group. In an interesting repetition of circumstances, Patrick Raboisson and Radhouane Dallel went back to my former laboratory, headed at that time by J.M. Besson, in Paris. They studied for two years under Luis Villanueva, a full-time reseacher and one of the French leaders of pain studies, who had been trained in Chile as a dentist. Under his guidance, they learned an anterograde tracing technique which confirmed the presence of anatomical projections from the oralis to higher level of the brain (Dallel et al., 1997). This had been previously suggested by anatomy with only retrograde tracings (Mantle-St. John and Tracey, 1987; Luo and Dessem, 1995) and by micro-electrode recording of nociceptive thalamic neurones after stimulation of oral and peri-oral fields (Dallel et al., 1988; Raboisson et al., 1989). Later, retrograde labeling after injection in the thalamus showed that the densities of projecting cells were similar in the oralis and caudalis, conferring on these two divisions equally important roles in trigeminal nociception (Voisin et al., 2001).
| AS THE CHAIN OF RESEARCHERS WAS LENGTHENING, THE TRIGEMINAL SENSORY COMPLEX BECAME A PERFORMING MODEL OF THE SPINAL DORSAL HORN. |
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This was concomitant with a change in the status of my more prominent pupils. The time had come for them to be leaders. For familial reasons, Patrick Raboisson left for a management position with a pharmacological society in Sweden. Radhouane Dallel was the next link in the transmission chain. He belonged to a new generation, one that felt at home in the university, which certainly helped him to benefit fully from his hard work and finally to express a new and important concept that turned out to be decisive for the future of the group.
The nature of the differences between he oralis and the spinal or caudalis dorsal horn was not well-understood. Some differences were well-known, such as the lack of substantia gelatinosa in the oralis, although it exists in the caudalis. Substantia gelatinosa is composed of a group of small interneurones located in the superficial part of the dorsal horn and has long been known to be implicated in nociception by controlling message transmission through the dorsal horn. Substantia gelatinosa receives terminals of the small unmyelinated afferent C-fibers that play a major role in nociception. Interestingly, the C-fiber primary afferent endings are scarce in the oralis, and almost all of them are found in the superficial layers of the caudalis. This had long been known (Windle, 1927) but had been forgotten. Radhouane Dallel pointed out that the C-fiber activities recorded via the oralis had to relay via another structure that appeared to be the substantia gelatinosa of the caudalis. This was illustrated when the C-fiber activity recorded from oralis nociceptive neurones was interrupted by morphine micro-injected into the caudalis substantia gelatinosa (Dallel et al., 1998) (Fig. 2
). The loop via the caudalis of C-fiber messages to the oralis also helps to explain another paradox: The latencies of the C responses are larger in the oralis than in the caudalis, although primary afferent fibers travel a shorter distance to reach the oralis than the caudalis. The indirect C-fiber activation of the oralis via the caudalis was also confirmed by tractotomy, which affected the C-fiber-mediated nociceptive responses but did not modify the A-fiber-mediated responses (Pajot et al., 2000).
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| THIS TRIGEMINAL MODEL ATTRACTED NEW RESEARCHERS. |
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The challenge of continuing to "diffuse" science is undoubtedly a key task of the present laboratory veterans: to maintain the transmission of knowledge both inside and outside the dental environment.
| CONCLUSION |
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| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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Received January 23, 2003; Accepted June 13, 2003
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