Blocking substance P signaling reduces musculotendinous and dermal fibrosis and sensorimotor declines in a rat model of overuse injury.

Purpose/Aim: Substance P-NK-1R signaling has been implicated in fibrotic tendinopathies and myositis. Blocking this signaling with a neurokinin 1 receptor antagonist (NK1RA) has been proposed as a therapeutic target for their treatment.Materials and Methods: Using a rodent model of overuse injury, we pharmacologically blocked Substance P using a specific NK1RA with the hopes of reducing forelimb tendon, muscle and dermal fibrogenic changes and associated pain-related behaviors. Young adult rats learned to pull at high force levels across a 5-week period, before performing a high repetition high force (HRHF) task for 3 weeks (2 h/day, 3 days/week). HRHF rats were untreated or treated in task weeks 2 and 3 with the NK1RA, i.p. Control rats received vehicle or NK1RA treatments.Results: Grip strength declined in untreated HRHF rats, and mechanical sensitivity and temperature aversion increased compared to controls; these changes were improved by NK1RA treatment (L-732,138). NK1RA treatment also reduced HRHF-induced thickening in flexor digitorum epitendons, and HRHF-induced increases of TGFbeta1, CCN2/CTGF, and collagen type 1 in flexor digitorum muscles. In the forepaw upper dermis, task-induced increases in collagen deposition were reduced by NK1RA treatment.Conclusions: Our findings indicate that Substance P plays a role in the development of fibrogenic responses and subsequent discomfort in forelimb tissues involved in performing a high demand repetitive forceful task.

Neuronal competition for action potential initiation sites in a circuit controlling simple learning.

The spatial and temporal patterns of action potential initiations were studied in a behaving leech preparation to determine the basis of increased firing that accompanies sensitization, a form of non-associative learning requiring the S-interneurons. Little is known at the network level about mechanisms of behavioral sensitization. The S-interneurons, one in each ganglion and linked by electrical synapses with both neighbors to form a chain, are interposed between sensory and motor neurons. In sensitized preparations the strength of shortening is related to S-cell firing, which itself is the result of impulses initiating in several S-cells. Because the S-cells, as independent initiation sites, all contribute to activity in the chain, it was hypothesized that during sensitization, increased multi-site activity increased the chain's firing rate. However, it was found that during sensitization, the single site with the largest initiation rate, the S-cell in the stimulated segment, suppressed initiations in adjacent ganglia. Experiments showed this was both because (1) it received the earliest, greatest input and (2) the delayed synaptic input to the adjacent S-cells coincided with the action potential refractory period. A compartmental model of the S-cell and its inputs showed that a simple, intrinsic mechanism of inexcitability after each action potential may account for suppression of impulse initiations. Thus, a non-synaptic competition between neurons alters synaptic integration in the chain. In one mode, inputs to different sites sum independently, whereas in another, synaptic input to a single site precisely specifies the overall pattern of activity.