Abstract
For decades, multiple electrophysiological techniques have been used to characterize the responses of primary afferents to a variety of stimuli under both normal and pathological conditions. With these strategies, experimenters are able to quantify afferent response properties, such as threshold and firing rates, and determine the functional classifications of individual cells. New research techniques have been developed that allow for both characterization of the afferent responses and correlation of the physiology and neurochemical or molecular identity, providing a comprehensive phenotype of the sensory neurons being analyzed. Dual characterization provides insight about the role of specific markers expressed in primary sensory neurons and how they may influence sensory transduction. In this chapter, we describe a powerful electrophysiological technique that allows for ex vivo recordings from intact primary muscle afferents from two target muscle groups, similar to that previously described for cutaneous afferents.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by grants to MPJ from the NIH (R01AR064551 and R01NS113965).
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Queme, L.F., Jankowski, M.P. (2022). Single-Unit Electrophysiological Recordings of Primary Muscle Sensory Neurons Using a Novel Ex Vivo Preparation. In: Seal, R.P. (eds) Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Pain. Neuromethods, vol 178. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-2039-7_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-2039-7_6
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