Pre-Synaptic Inhibition and the Gate Control of Pain

Tutorial Simulations

A Note to Users

The simulations run on the Windows program Neurosim. This may be available through your institution, but, if you wish, you can purchase an individual copy from the Microsoft Store.

FYI a dotted link in the text below activates a pop-up tipExcept this one doesn't have any information ... with additional information when you hover on it.

Parameter files

The tutorial text coloured thus are links to Neurosim parameter files which set up the various simulations, You can download them individuallyRight-click the link in your browser and, in Firefox, select Save Link As. Other browsers may vary in the exact command, but all should provide the facility. from this site, or you can download the full set as a zip file and expand it locally.

The easiest way to load a parameter file into Neurosim is by drag-and-drop from Windows Explorer to the Setup or Results view within the program. You can also use the File: Open menu command or toolbar button.

Feedback

Feedback is always useful, and if you wish to comment on the tutorial, or on the Neurosim program itself, an anonymous survey form is available here.

Aims

The overall aim is to help you understand why the advice to "rub it to make it feel better" actually works for some types of pain.

In more detail, the aim is to increase your understanding of 3 topics:

  1. Pre-synaptic inhibition.
        Including why pre-synaptic inhibition is often depolarizing (primary afferent depolarization: PAD) .
  2. The gate control of pain, and how it works.
  3. How PAD can sometimes elicit a dorsal root reflex (DRR).
  4. Including what the DRR is, and its significance in pain.

I suggest that you follow the links above in sequence (once you start the first, the others follow in order in the linked file, so you do not need to return to this page).

The activities may take about an hour to complete, but you can bail out at any stage and hopefully you will still get benefit from what you have done up to that point.