Enhancement of the responses of ascending tract cells in the cat spinal cord by acute inflammation of the knee joint.

Recordings were made from 16 ascending tract cells in the spinal cords of anaesthetized, spinalized cats before and after an acute arthritis was produced by injection of kaolin and carrageenan into the knee joint. The responses tested routinely were to passive flexion of the knee, an innocuous movement. In some cases, responses to other movements were also tested, and changes in background discharge rates were monitored. Control recordings for a period of 1 h or in 3 cases of 3 h indicated that the responses to flexion were reasonably stationary. Four tract cells that initially showed little or no response to flexion of the knee joint developed large responses within 1 to 2 h after inflammation of the joint. Another 9 cells were tested that had responses to flexion of the knee joint prior to inflammation. In 6 cases, inflammation produced enhanced static or transient responses. In 2 cases, the effect of flexion was initially inhibitory or variable, but after inflammation these cells showed large excitatory responses. In the other case, inflammation had no effect. Background discharges were increased by inflammation in 6 of these 9 cells. The effect of inflammation of the knee joint was tested on 3 tract cells that had no clearly defined receptive field in the knee. In 1 case, a response developed to knee flexion after acute inflammation was produced. In the other 2 cases, there were initially responses to knee flexion, but these were unchanged by inflammation. Two of the cells tested had bilateral receptive fields in or around the knee joints. Inflammation of one knee joint enhanced the responses to flexion of the same but not of the contralateral knee in one case but greatly increased the responses to flexion of both knees in the other case. Injections of prostaglandin (PGE2) caused an enhancement of the responses to knee flexion beyond that caused by inflammation in 5 of 7 cases. One cell whose responses to flexion of the knee were unaffected by inflammation showed inhibitory responses to prostaglandin injections into the inflamed knee joint. The effects of inflammation on the responses of ascending tract cells of the spinal cord appear to serve as a useful neural model of the events responsible for the development of arthritic pain.