Unilateral nerve injury down-regulates mRNA for Na+ channel SCN10A bilaterally in rat dorsal root ganglia.
Injury makes sensory neurons abnormally excitable and triggers coincident alterations in relative levels of different types of voltage-gated sodium channels that they express. We report that nerve injury depress levels of SCN10A-specific mRNA in contralateral as well as ipsilateral dorsal root ganglia of rats, suggesting a possible peripheral mechanism for the contralateral 'mirror-image' hyperalgesia described in nerve-injured humans and experimental animals.