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Updated: May 12, 2026

Optical Sectioning and Visualization of the Intervertebral Disc from Embryonic Development to Degeneration
Published on: July 8, 2021
[Innervation of the intervertebral disc]
José García-Cosamalón1, Javier Fernández-Fernández, Emilio González-Martínez
1Servicio de Neurocirugía, Complejo Asistencial Universitario de León, León, España.
Abstract:
Until very recently, intervertebral disc innervation was a subject of considerable debate. Nowadays, the introduction of inmunohistochemical techniques associated to specific antibodies and studies with retrograde tracers in nerves have allowed greater understanding of disc innervation in physiological and pathological conditions and also endings characteristics and their patterns of distribution in both situations. The existing controversies regarding structural basis of discogenic pain, have raised the interest of knowing the influence of innervation in back pain from discal origin and its characteristics. Today, we know that pathologic neoinnervation accompanying radial fissures is an important factor in the genesis of discogenic pain; within a complex mechanism in which other neurobiomechemical, inflammatory and biomechanical factors are involved.
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