Cytokines in Neuropathic Pain and Associated Depression.

Neuropathic pain occurs as a result of lesion or disease affecting the somatosensory nervous system and is present in a diverse set of peripheral and central pathologies such as nerve trauma, diabetic neuropathy, post-herpetic neuralgia, chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy, spinal cord injury and multiple sclerosis. Debilitating symptoms including allodynia, hyperalgesia and spontaneous pain have a substantial negative impact on patients' quality of life. The currently available therapeutic treatments are generally ineffective and characterised by poor response rates. Accumulating evidence suggests that neuroinflammation and cytokine signalling play a critical role in neuropathic pain. Numerous experimental studies have demonstrated that certain pro-inflammatory cytokines are elevated in neuropathic pain conditions, and administration of these cytokines can elicit pain hypersensitivity in the absence of injury or disease. This phenomenon is also apparent in the 'sickness response', which encompasses a broad inflammatory response to disease and injury and involves a series of physiological and behavioural changes including pain hypersensitivity. Interestingly, the 'sickness response' is also similar in nature to some of the defining characteristics of the depressed state of affective disorder. In this review, we explore links that may relate the co-existence of depression in neuropathic pain patients with the activity of cytokines and discuss the role of several key pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines in neuropathic pain.

Effects of active immunisation with myelin basic protein and myelin-derived altered peptide ligand on pain hypersensitivity and neuroinflammation.

Neuropathic pain is a debilitating condition in multiple sclerosis and experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). Specific myelin basic protein (MBP) peptides are encephalitogenic, and myelin-derived altered peptide ligands (APLs) are capable of preventing and ameliorating EAE. We investigated the effects of active immunisation with a weakly encephalitogenic epitope of MBP (MBP87-99) and its mutant APL (Cyclo-87-99[A(91),A(96)]MBP87-99) on pain hypersensitivity and neuroinflammation in Lewis rats. MBP-treated rats exhibited significant mechanical and thermal pain hypersensitivity associated with infiltration of T cells, MHC class II expression and microglia activation in the spinal cord, without developing clinical signs of paralysis. Co-immunisation with APL significantly decreased pain hypersensitivity and neuroinflammation emphasising the important role of neuroimmune crosstalk in neuropathic pain.