Functional outcome after peripheral nerve regeneration is often poor, particularly involving nerve injuries far from their targets. Comparison of sensory and motor axon regeneration before target reinnervation is not possible in the clinical setting, and previous experimental studies addressing the question of differences in growth rates of different nerve fibre populations led to conflicting r...

The peptidergic sensory innervation of cranial blood vessels may play an important part in vascular head pain. The neuropeptides calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) and substance P in sensory fibres are dependent on nerve growth factor (NGF) produced by the blood vessels, and when released from nerve terminals mediate neurogenic inflammation. NGF is increased in inflamed tissues, and acts vi...

Deposition of phosphorylated SNCA (also known as α-synuclein) in cutaneous nerve fibres has been shown pre- and post-mortem in Parkinson's disease. Thus far, no pre-mortem studies investigating the presence of phosphorylated SNCA in skin sympathetic nerve fibres of multiple system atrophy, another synucleinopathy, have been conducted. In this in vivo study, skin from the ventral forearm of 10 p...

OBJECTIVE The capsaicin receptor TRPV1 (transient receptor potential vanilloid type-1) may play an important role in visceral pain and hypersensitivity states. In irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), abdominal pain is a common and distressing symptom where the pathophysiology is still not clearly defined. TRPV1-immunoreactive nerve fibres were investigated in colonic biopsies from patients with IBS,...

BACKGROUND Cutaneous anaesthesia in necrobiosis lipoidica (NL) has been attributed to the destruction of nerve fibres by the inflammatory process. In the 1980s, one study demonstrated a decrease in S100 positive neural fibres as proof of this. Thermalgic information is mainly dependent on small fibres, either myelinated or unmyelinated, and S100 protein is expressed by Schwann cells. OBJECTIV...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the correlation between density of nerve fibres and the presence of BDNF(+) cells. METHODS Densities of nerve fibres and BDNF(+) cells were detected by quantitative immunohistochemistry in fresh synovial tissue from 52 patients with RA, 59 with OA, and 26 controls (Co). BDNF was also detected by in situ hybridisation. RESULTS Sympathetic nerve fibre density was simi...

It has been shown by Dawson and Scott (1949) that when the median or ulnar nerve is stimulated with a brief shock at the wrist an action potential can be recorded from the nerve at a higher level in the arm through electrodes placed on the skin over the course of the nerve. This technique has proved to be of considerable practical value in the assessment of patients with ulnar nerve lesions at ...

BACKGROUND Endometriosis is a gynaecological disease that can be associated with severe pelvic pain; however, the mechanisms by which pain is generated remain unknown. METHODS Peritoneal endometriotic lesions and normal peritoneum were prepared from women with and without endometriosis (n = 40 and 36, respectively). Specimens were also prepared from endosalpingiosis lesions (n = 9). These sec...