Defined Medium Organotypic Cultures of Spinal Cord Put Pain in a Dish

Nerve injury and/or disease are known to provoke the release of various neurotrophic and inflammatory agents from spinal microglia and astrocytes. Prolonged exposure of spinal neurons to these ‘nociceptive mediators’ invokes pathophysiological changes that lead to the ‘central sensitization’ which characterizes chronic pain. In order to investigate their actions, it is necessary to expose spinal neural networks to individual putative mediators for prolonged periods as would occur following injury or in the presence of disease. Because this is not feasible using acutely isolated spinal cord slices, we developed a defined medium organotypic spinal cord culture model which retains the structural and synaptic organization of the spinal cord in vivo. This ‘pain in a dish’ system represents an exciting new methodology for the investigation of the pathophysiological processes that underlie chronic pain.