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Brain Reward Circuit and Pain

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Advances in Pain Research: Mechanisms and Modulation of Chronic Pain

Part of the book series: Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology ((AEMB,volume 1099))

Abstract

Pain plays an important role in alerting the body to potential tissue injury and drives behavior that protects the body from further harm. In contrast, chronic pain does not serve this function and instead only provides a persistent sensation of pain and a negative experience. The mesolimbic dopaminergic system has been recognized to play a central role in motivated behaviors, including various types of reward and pleasure. Many dopaminergic neurons may release multiple neurotransmitters, and the physiological role of the co-release of these transmitters has been revealed incrementally. However, it was not yet clear whether the mesolimbic dopaminergic system and small molecules released in the nucleus accumbens (N.Acc.), the input region of mesolimbic dopaminergic neurons, are involved in pain modulation. Recently, we revealed that the mesolimbic dopaminergic system and small molecules released in the N.Acc. could contribute to pain modulation. In this review, we provide an overview of the relationship between pain and the brain reward circuit using a combination of optogenetics, electrophysiology, and in vivo microdialysis/mass spectrometry integrated system.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by MEXT-Supported Program for the Strategic Research Foundation at Private Universities No.S1411019.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pharmacology, Hoshi University School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tokyo, Japan

    Moe Watanabe & Minoru Narita

  2. Life Science Tokyo Advanced Research Center (L-StaR), Hoshi University School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tokyo, Japan

    Minoru Narita

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  1. Moe Watanabe
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  2. Minoru Narita
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Correspondence to Minoru Narita .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Neuroscience, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan

    Bai-Chuang Shyu

  2. Division of Cell Signaling, Okazaki Institute for Integrative Bioscience (National Institute for Physiological Sciences), Okazaki, Aichi, Japan

    Makoto Tominaga

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Watanabe, M., Narita, M. (2018). Brain Reward Circuit and Pain. In: Shyu, BC., Tominaga, M. (eds) Advances in Pain Research: Mechanisms and Modulation of Chronic Pain. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 1099. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1756-9_17

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