Scientific publications

Our work entitled "Central terminals of primary afferents coordinate the spontaneous activity of dorsal horn neurons" has been published in the Journal of Physiology. This is our first work combining optogenetics with electrophysiological recordings. The papers is published in open access and can be found here. 

We have published a review article on spinal cord neurons in collaboration with Drs Bardoni (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) and Baccei (University of Cincinnati). The idea came up from a visit of Dr Bardoni to the lab during last summer  https://doi.org/10.3389/fncel.2025.1548252

We have sent a manuscript for revision to Neuroinformatics. The preprint is accesible here.

We have published a review work on spontaneous activity in the spinal cord. This is one of the main focus of the laboratory at the moment. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00424-024-02971-8

We have recently published a new paper in the journal Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience entitled "Synchronous firing of dorsal horn neurons at the origin of dorsal root reflexes in naïve and paw-inflamed mice". The full text of the work can be accessed here.
This work represents the starting point of the current project. We show that neurons of the dorsal horn generate spontaneous activity that tends to group together forming clusters at specific moments of time and this grouping has a functional relationship with the activity that occurs in primary afferent neurons that reach the spinal cord. In conditions of peripheral inflammation, this grouping is increased, indicating that changes in this activity could occur in situations in which the transmission of nociceptive information is altered.
The activity in these circuits supposes a form of control of the input of information towards the spinal cord, but they also suppose a possible mechanism to maintain a basal activity in spinal sensory circuits. This work has been carried out entirely in the research group using multielectrode recordings and analysis with artificial intelligence algorithms.