Behavioral and cellular analysis of the cognitive and emotional consequences of persistent neuropathic pain in mice

MARÍA JESÚS TRUJILLO; FLORENCIA VASALLU; MILAGROS LOPEZ; LIONEL MULLER IGAZ; FERNANDO KASANETZ

San Luis

Congreso; XXXVIII Congreso de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias; 2023

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias

Chronic neuropathic pain (NP) is a severe neurological condition with significant clinicalrelevance. Beyond sensory discomfort, it leads to cognitive impairments and emotionaldisorders, lowering patients’ quality of life. Although this comorbidity is clinicallyrecognized, the cellular pathophysiological mechanisms bridging persistent pain andcognitive/emotional issues remain uncertain.The spared nerve injury of the sciatic nerve (SNI), a well-established model that is usefulto study the long-term consequences of NP in rodents, has been shown to lead tocognitive and emotional impairments concomitant with neural changes in various brainregions. However, research often focuses on time-periods close to the lesion. Tounderstand in detail the long-term behavioral impact of SNI intervention animals weresubjected to several behavioral tests at one, two, three and four months post-lesion.Spatial working memory, sociability as well as locomotion and exploratory behaviorsshowed no differences between groups. Additional analysis conducted al 4 monthspost-surgery showed preserved performance related to anxiety and repetitive behaviors.These results indicate that SNI in young adult mice is not sufficient to induce robustcognitive and emotional symptoms associated to persistent NP. To further evaluate theimpact of NP we plan to analyze the expression of neurodegeneratives markers in brainareas associated to affective encoding.