Brain mapping of the rat brain against direct stimulations to primary motor cortex

抄録

Central neuropathic pain is a complex and difficult chronic syndrome in modern medicine. Recently, Motor Cortex Stimulation (MCS) has emerged as an effective treatment for chronic neuropathic pain. However, the precise mechanisms underlying analgesia induced by MCS have not been completely understood. The purpose our study is to investigate the mapping of the brain during the MCS procedure. We inserted bi-polar electrode made of tungsten into primary motor cortex (M1) region of the intact adult male Wistar rats. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scan was implemented simultaneously with the motor cortical stimulation. The blood oxygen-level dependent signals (BOLD) taken from fMRI were used as an index to reflect the response against MCS. The independent component analysis (ICA) result showed that contralateral Motor Cortex (M1), ipsilateral striatum (CPu), ipsilateral Somatosensory (S1) and ipsilateral thalamus were activated after the onset of the MCS.