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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2011 Nov 1.
Published in final edited form as: Pain. 2010 Aug 30;151(2):447–459. doi: 10.1016/j.pain.2010.08.006

Figure 9.

Figure 9

Effects of cutting grey rami to the DRG on mechanical pain behavior. Mechanical withdrawal threshold was determined with the von Frey method (see Methods). Ligation of the ventral ramus of the L5 spinal nerve (SNL) was performed on day 0. Baseline behavior plotted on day -1 is average of measurements on three separate preceding days. Average ipsilateral baseline is indicated by the dashed line. Top: cutting the grey ramus to the L5 DRG, 3 weeks before the SNL surgery (n = 8 animals), significantly reduced the mechanical pain sensitivity induced by SNL (n = 13) on the ipsilateral side (left panels) but had no effect on the contralateral side (right panels). Differences between the two ipsilateral groups were significant at all points except baseline and POD 14. Middle: cutting both the L4 and L5 grey rami 3 weeks before the SNL surgery gave a similar effect (n = 15). SNL data is replotted from top figure. Bottom: cutting the grey ramus to the L5 DRG at the time of surgery also reduces mechanical pain behavior, with a delay (n = 5). SNL data is replotted from top figure.