Interactions between glia, the immune system and pain processes during early development

ABSTRACT Pain is a serious problem for infants and children and treatment options are limited. Moreover, infants born prematurely or hospitalized for illness likely have concurrent infection that activates the immune system. It is now recognized that the immune system in general and glia in particul...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Developmental psychobiology 2014-12, Vol.56 (8), p.1698-1710
Main Authors: Barr, Gordon A., Hunter, Deirtra A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
analgesia neonate
Humans
immune system
Immune System - metabolism
Infant
neonatal
Neuroglia - metabolism
pain
Pain - metabolism
Pain Perception - physiology
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Summary:ABSTRACT Pain is a serious problem for infants and children and treatment options are limited. Moreover, infants born prematurely or hospitalized for illness likely have concurrent infection that activates the immune system. It is now recognized that the immune system in general and glia in particular influence neurotransmission and that the neural bases of pain are intimately connected to immune function. We know that injuries that induce pain activate immune function and suppressing the immune system alleviates pain. Despite this advance in our understanding, virtually nothing is known of the role that the immune system plays in pain processing in infants and children, even though pain is a serious clinical issue in pediatric medicine. This brief review summarizes the existing data on immune‐neural interactions in infants, providing evidence for the immaturity of these interactions. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 56: 1698–1710, 2014.
ISSN:0012-1630
1098-2302
DOI:10.1002/dev.21229