Affiliations: Department of Physiology, All India Institute of
Medical Sciences, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi-110029, India | Department of Physiology, College of Medicine and
Medical Sciences, Arabian Gulf University, P.O.Box 22979, Manama, Bahrain
Note: [] Corresponding author: Dr. Suman Jain, Department of Physiology,
All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Ansari Nagar, New Delhi 110029, India.
E-mail: suman@medinst.ernet.in; sumanjain80@hotmail.com
Abstract: Purpose: Amygdala plays a very important role in the mediation of
emotional and affective components of pain. Bilateral amygdalectomy increases
the threshold for vocalization, a measure of emotional reactivity, without any
change in the tail flick latency. The present work was designed to study the
recovery of emotional nociceptive behaviour following neural tissue
transplantation in lesioned rats. Methods: In a group of adult wistar rats
lesions of the central nucleus of amygdala (CeA) were produced
electrolytically. In a separate group of rats amygdalar tissue was
transplanted at the lesioned site 2 days thereafter. The vocalization tests,
viz. simple vocalization (SV) and vocalization after discharge (VA), which were
used to study the emotional nociceptive behaviour were carried out both before
and after pro-ducing lesion/transplant. Results: Bilateral CeA lesions
increased the thresholds for SV and VA significantly (p < 0.001), indicating
analgesia. Following amygdalar tissue transplantation a significant decrease (p
< 0.05) in the thresholds were observed when compared with the lesioned
group, although when compared with the basal data it showed an increase
(p<0.05). Conclusions: The results indicate a partial recovery of the
vocalization response following amygdalar tissue transplantation.
