Abstract
Sound—including music and noise—can relieve pain in humans, but the underlying neural mechanisms remain unknown. We discovered that analgesic effects of sound depended on a low (5-decibel) signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) relative to ambient noise in mice. Viral tracing, microendoscopic calcium imaging, and multitetrode recordings in freely moving mice showed that low-SNR sounds inhibited glutamatergic inputs from the auditory cortex (ACx Glu ) to the thalamic posterior (PO) and ventral posterior (VP) nuclei. Optogenetic or chemogenetic inhibition of the ACx Glu →PO and ACx Glu →VP circuits mimicked the low-SNR sound–induced analgesia in inflamed hindpaws and forepaws, respectively. Artificial activation of these two circuits abolished the sound-induced analgesia. Our study reveals the corticothalamic circuits underlying sound-promoted analgesia by deciphering the role of the auditory system in pain processing.
🔬 Techniques
✨ Fluorophores
🧪 Sample Preparation
💾 Data Repositories
🏛️ Research Organizations (ROR)
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📊 Figures
Fig. 1.
Low-intensity sound relative to ambient noise induces analgesia in mice.
( A ) Schematic for inducing inflammatory pain and the von Frey test to assess the mechanical nociceptive threshold. Sound refers to delivered consonant sound (CS), dissonant sound (DS), or white nois...
Fig. 2.
ACx Glu neurons project to VP Glu and PO Glu neurons.
( A ) Schematic for multitetrode recording in freely moving mice. ( B and C ) Raster plots and voltage traces of the spontaneous firings recorded in the ACx (B) and summarized data (5-dB SNR, n = 25 c...
Fig. 3.
Low-SNR sound inhibits the ACx Glu u2192PO circuit to induce analgesia on hindpaws.
( A ) Schematic for multitetrode recording in freely moving mice with punctate mechanical stimulation (von Frey filament, 0.04 g). ( B and C ) Raster plots, voltage traces, and summarized data for the...
Fig. 4.
Inhibition of the ACx Glu u2192VP circuit mediates low-SNR sound-induced analgesia on forepaws.
( A ) Schematic for multitetrode recording in the VP or PO of freely moving mice. ( B and C ) Raster plots, voltage traces, and summarized data for the spontaneous firings recorded in PO neurons ( n =...
Figure images are served from the NIH/NLM PubMed Central Open Access Subset or Europe PMC; copyright remains with the publishers and authors.
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