BACKGROUND Nerve injury may induce neuropathic pain. In studying the mechanisms of orofacial neuropathic pain, attention has been paid to the plastic changes that occur in the trigeminal ganglia (TGs) and nucleus in response to an injury of the trigeminal nerve branches. Previous studies have explored the impact of sciatic nerve injury on dorsal root ganglia (DRGs) and it has shown dramatic cha...

Two hundred consecutive female patients, who were referred to a university-based facial pain clinic, were asked to mark all painful sites on sketches showing the contours of a human body in the frontal and rear views. The drawings were analyzed with transparent templates containing 1875 (frontal view) and 1929 (rear view) square cells of equal size. The average patient scored 71.8 cells in the ...

BACKGROUND Trigeminal neuralgia is an intense neuralgia involving facial areas supplied by trigeminal nerve. The pain is characterized by sudden onset, short persistence, sharp or lancinating. Trigeminal neuralgia commonly affects frontal areas, infraorbital or paranasal areas, mandibular areas and teeth. While Trigeminal neuralgia affecting merely the upper eyelid is rare. Here we report a cas...

Abstract Neuropathic pain induced by chemotherapy drugs such as oxaliplatin is a dose-limiting side effect in cancer treatment. The mechanisms underlying chemotherapy-induced neuropathic pain are not fully understood. KCNQ2 channels are low-threshold voltage-gated K+ channels that play a role in controlling neuronal excitability. Downregulation of KCNQ2 channels has been proposed to be an under...

Trigeminal neuralgia (TN) is a highly disabling disorder characterized by very severe, brief, electric shocks, like recurrent episodes of facial pain. New diagnostic criteria classifying TN on the basis presence trigeminal neurovascular conflict or an underlying neurological can help better characterize patients and determine treatments. Magnetic resonance imaging using specific sequences shoul...

OBJECTIVE To understand a possible role for transient potential receptor vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) ion channels in sumatriptan relief of pain mediated by trigeminal nociceptors. BACKGROUND TRPV1 channels are expressed in small nociceptive sensory neurons. In dorsal root ganglia, TRPV1-containing nociceptors mediate certain types of inflammatory pain. Neurogenic inflammation of cerebral dura and blo...

Background Although we have previously reported that intravenous resveratrol administration inhibits the nociceptive neuronal activity of spinal trigeminal nucleus caudalis neurons, the site of the central effect remains unclear. The aim of the present study was to examine whether acute intravenous resveratrol administration in the rat attenuates central glutamatergic transmission of spinal tri...

BACKGROUND Vestibular schwannoma (acoustic neuroma) most commonly presents with ipsilateral disturbances of acoustic, vestibular, trigeminal and facial nerves. Presentation of vestibular schwannoma with contralateral facial pain is quite uncommon. CASE PRESENTATION Among 156 cases of operated vestibular schwannoma, we found one case with unusual presentation of contralateral hemifacial pain. ...