ID: 206155 Rapid Adaption of Dorsal Horn Inhibitory Populations to Dorsal Column Stimulation

Epidural spinal cord stimulation (SCS) has been used for over 50 years to treat refractory pain and avoid addictive opioid therapies. However, there is an incomplete understanding of how these neuromodulatory devices mediate pain relief, which has precluded effective clinical implementation. One of the mechanisms of SCS-mediated pain relief is through activation of inhibitory superficial dorsal horn circuits, as elegantly proposed in the Gate Control Theory (GCT). The properties of sustained Aβ-fiber stimulation evoked responses in molecularly defined inhibitory dorsal horn populations remain poorly defined and were investigated here using an optical approach.