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Updated: Jun 12, 2026

Intracranial Pharmacotherapy and Pain Assays in Rodents
Published on: April 9, 2019
Can satellite glial cells be therapeutic targets for pain control?
Luc Jasmin1, Jean-Philippe Vit, Aditi Bhargava
1Department of Anatomy, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143-0452, USA. ljasmin@gmail.com
Abstract:
Satellite glial cells (SGCs) undergo phenotypic changes and divide the following injury into a peripheral nerve. Nerve injury, also elicits an immune response and several antigen-presenting cells are found in close proximity to SGCs. Silencing SCG-specific molecules involved in intercellular transport (Connexin 43) or glutamate recycling (glutamine synthase) can dramatically alter nociceptive responses of normal and nerve-injured rats. Transducing SGCs with glutamic acid decarboxylase can produce analgesia in models of trigeminal pain. Taken together these data suggest that SGCs may play a role in the genesis or maintenance of pain and open a range of new possibilities for curing neuropathic pain.
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