Glial cell plasticity in sensory ganglia induced by nerve damage

Satellite glial cells: more than just ‘rings around the neuron’

“…It has been shown previously that nerve damage increases gap junction-mediated coupling between SGCs, which may contribute to chronic pain (Hanani et al, 2002). Here, Ohara et al (2010) demonstrate that knocking down the gap junction protein connexin 43 reduced pain in a rat model.…”

Satellite glial cells in sensory ganglia: from form to function

“…3B). This idea was fully supported by a quantitative electron microscopic study, which revealed a growth of numerous fine processes between SGC envelopes and a 6-fold increase in the number of gap junctions [64,132] (Fig. 5).…”

“…However, dye coupling studies showed that SGCs around a given neuron are functionally coupled in about 21% of the cases [64,132] (see Fig. 3A).…”

“…A search of the literature did not yield any study on CXs in sensory ganglia, and clearly this is an area where research is needed, especially in view of the prominent changes in dye coupling in sensory ganglia following axotomy of the sciatic [64] and infra orbital nerve [26]. We recently identified Cx43 in …”

Increase in number of the gap junctions between satellite neuroglial cells during lifetime: An ultrastructural study in rabbit spinal ganglia from youth to extremely advanced age

“…These cells are usually called satellite cells and will be referred to as such in what follows. The satellite cells comprising a given perineuronal sheath are coupled to each other via gap junctions [11,19,25,26,28,29]. Gap junctions are important because they make possible metabolic cooperation between cells (e.g.…”