Figure 3.

Neuronal sensitization during the progression of 4NQO-induced oral carcinogenesis. Excitability was quantified with resting membrane potential (A), rheobase (B) and action potential (AP) threshold (C) in trigeminal ganglia (TG) neurons from vehicle-treated mice and 4NQO-treated female (red bars, N = 4) and male (blue bars, N = 6) mice with oSCC. P > 0.05 for Sex vs. Treatment by Two-way ANOVA. Pooled neurons from female and male mice with 4NQO-induced oSCC had significantly depolarized membrane potential and significantly decreased rheobase. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01 vs. vehicle-treated by Unpaired Student’s t-test. (D) A representative plot of depolarization (4 ms) evoked AP from a vehicle-treated (black) female mouse and a female mouse with 4NQO-induced oral oSCC (red) showing how we defined the active electrophysiological properties analyzed in Table 1. AHP is afterhyperpolarization; τ is time constant of AHP decay.