They are present in the spinal cord from birth, are sensitive to mechanical stimuli, and play an important role in triggering the pathological events that follow trauma. What happens if they are blocked? The extent of the damage decreases. This is the finding of a new study published in The Journal of Physiology and conducted by a team at Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA), led by Professor Giuliano Taccola, with Atiyeh Mohammadshirazi as first author.
Everything happens within the very first milliseconds after the trauma, the scientists explained. It is during this brief time window that these spinal mechanoreceptors become active, triggering an impairment of the electrical signals that underlies normal neural communication. This initial event sets off a cascade of neurotoxic factors known as secondary damage, which amplifies and spreads the original traumatic lesion over the following hours and days.
Understanding the role of these receptors, according to the authors, is important not only for clarifying what happens during spinal shock. As demonstrated in the experiments, when their activity is blocked the functional damage is also reduced. For this reason, spinal mechanoreceptors may represent a potential target for strategies aimed at reducing the disabling consequences of spinal cord injury.
The study was carried out thanks to 5×1000 funding allocated to SISSA and conducted in Professor Taccola’s laboratory at the Gervasutta Hospital in Udine.