Mechanisms for dysregulation of excitatory-inhibitory balance underlying allodynia in dorsal horn neural subcircuits.

Chronic pain is a wide-spread condition that is debilitating and expensive to manage, costing the United States alone around $600 billion in 2010. In a common symptom of chronic pain called allodynia, non-painful stimuli produce painful responses with highly variable presentations across individuals...

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Main Authors: Alexander G Ginsberg, Scott F Lempka, Bo Duan, Victoria Booth, Jennifer Crodelle
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2025-01-01
Series:PLoS Computational Biology
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1012234
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author Alexander G Ginsberg
Scott F Lempka
Bo Duan
Victoria Booth
Jennifer Crodelle
author_facet Alexander G Ginsberg
Scott F Lempka
Bo Duan
Victoria Booth
Jennifer Crodelle
author_sort Alexander G Ginsberg
collection DOAJ
description Chronic pain is a wide-spread condition that is debilitating and expensive to manage, costing the United States alone around $600 billion in 2010. In a common symptom of chronic pain called allodynia, non-painful stimuli produce painful responses with highly variable presentations across individuals. While the specific mechanisms remain unclear, allodynia is hypothesized to be caused by the dysregulation of excitatory-inhibitory (E-I) balance in pain-processing neural circuitry in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord. In this work, we analyze biophysically-motivated subcircuit structures that represent common motifs in neural circuits in laminae I-II of the dorsal horn. These circuits are hypothesized to be part of the neural pathways that mediate two different types of allodynia: static and dynamic. We use neural firing rate models to describe the activity of populations of excitatory and inhibitory interneurons within each subcircuit. By accounting for experimentally-observed responses under healthy conditions, we specify model parameters defining populations of subcircuits that yield typical behavior under normal conditions. Then, we implement a sensitivity analysis approach to identify the mechanisms most likely to cause allodynia-producing dysregulation of the subcircuit's E-I signaling. We find that disruption of E-I balance generally occurs either due to downregulation of inhibitory signaling so that excitatory neurons are "released" from inhibitory control, or due to upregulation of excitatory neuron responses so that excitatory neurons "escape" their inhibitory control. Which of these mechanisms is most likely to occur, the subcircuit components involved in the mechanism, and the proportion of subcircuits exhibiting the mechanism can vary depending on the subcircuit structure. These results suggest specific hypotheses about diverse mechanisms that may be most likely responsible for allodynia, thus offering predictions for the high interindividual variability observed in allodynia and identifying targets for further experimental studies on the underlying mechanisms of this chronic pain symptom.
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spelling doaj-art-c76ca2ab4ccc4267b11b3a6af797c1bd2025-02-05T05:30:38ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS Computational Biology1553-734X1553-73582025-01-01211e101223410.1371/journal.pcbi.1012234Mechanisms for dysregulation of excitatory-inhibitory balance underlying allodynia in dorsal horn neural subcircuits.Alexander G GinsbergScott F LempkaBo DuanVictoria BoothJennifer CrodelleChronic pain is a wide-spread condition that is debilitating and expensive to manage, costing the United States alone around $600 billion in 2010. In a common symptom of chronic pain called allodynia, non-painful stimuli produce painful responses with highly variable presentations across individuals. While the specific mechanisms remain unclear, allodynia is hypothesized to be caused by the dysregulation of excitatory-inhibitory (E-I) balance in pain-processing neural circuitry in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord. In this work, we analyze biophysically-motivated subcircuit structures that represent common motifs in neural circuits in laminae I-II of the dorsal horn. These circuits are hypothesized to be part of the neural pathways that mediate two different types of allodynia: static and dynamic. We use neural firing rate models to describe the activity of populations of excitatory and inhibitory interneurons within each subcircuit. By accounting for experimentally-observed responses under healthy conditions, we specify model parameters defining populations of subcircuits that yield typical behavior under normal conditions. Then, we implement a sensitivity analysis approach to identify the mechanisms most likely to cause allodynia-producing dysregulation of the subcircuit's E-I signaling. We find that disruption of E-I balance generally occurs either due to downregulation of inhibitory signaling so that excitatory neurons are "released" from inhibitory control, or due to upregulation of excitatory neuron responses so that excitatory neurons "escape" their inhibitory control. Which of these mechanisms is most likely to occur, the subcircuit components involved in the mechanism, and the proportion of subcircuits exhibiting the mechanism can vary depending on the subcircuit structure. These results suggest specific hypotheses about diverse mechanisms that may be most likely responsible for allodynia, thus offering predictions for the high interindividual variability observed in allodynia and identifying targets for further experimental studies on the underlying mechanisms of this chronic pain symptom.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1012234
spellingShingle Alexander G Ginsberg
Scott F Lempka
Bo Duan
Victoria Booth
Jennifer Crodelle
Mechanisms for dysregulation of excitatory-inhibitory balance underlying allodynia in dorsal horn neural subcircuits.
PLoS Computational Biology
title Mechanisms for dysregulation of excitatory-inhibitory balance underlying allodynia in dorsal horn neural subcircuits.
title_full Mechanisms for dysregulation of excitatory-inhibitory balance underlying allodynia in dorsal horn neural subcircuits.
title_fullStr Mechanisms for dysregulation of excitatory-inhibitory balance underlying allodynia in dorsal horn neural subcircuits.
title_full_unstemmed Mechanisms for dysregulation of excitatory-inhibitory balance underlying allodynia in dorsal horn neural subcircuits.
title_short Mechanisms for dysregulation of excitatory-inhibitory balance underlying allodynia in dorsal horn neural subcircuits.
title_sort mechanisms for dysregulation of excitatory inhibitory balance underlying allodynia in dorsal horn neural subcircuits
url https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1012234
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