Thermoreceptive neurons in the dorsal portion of the trigeminal principal nucleus in rats

The dorsal margin of the trigeminal principal nucleus (PV) contains neurons responsive to innocuous thermal stimulation of the tongue and maybe a thermal relay (Hayama and Hashimoto, 2011). The present electrophysiological study examined whether PV thermoreceptive neurons project to the thalamus and investigated response properties to cold (20 °C) or warm (40 °C) stimulation of the tongue. Twenty-three thermoreceptive neurons were identified in the dorsal portion of the PV. Twenty of the 23 neurons were examined but none projected to the thalamus. Impulse frequencies of 8 of the 11 thermoreceptive neurons examined rapidly increased with cold stimulation, then decreased and gradually increased to steady state level, and rapidly decreased with warm stimulation. Thermal receptive fields were examined for six PV thermoreceptive neurons; five had a large receptive field extending over the whole anterior tongue ipsilateral to the recording side. These findings suggest that the dorsal portion of the PV is not a thermal relay mediating thermal information from the tongue to the thalamus.