Chronic pain mediated changes in the appetitive value of affective touch in mice

The existence of skin-to-brain circuits for rewarding gentle touch highlight its critical nature across species. However, this gentle affective touch is not always appetitive and can produce aversion or negative affect in disorders such as chronic pain. Sensory neurons expressing the protein MrgprB4 detect gentle stroking in mice and their activation of these neurons known to be positively reinforcing. Here we assess whether activation of channelrhodopsin (ChR2) expressing MrgprB4 afferents signal positively valenced tactile information and whether this is altered in models of chronic pain. We further interrogate how this this sensory information is reflected in the downstream circuits recruited. Optogenetic activation of MrgprB4 lineage afferents was found to be appetitive in control and capsaicin sensitized mice but not nerve injured mice, indicating that the appetitive value is diminished in neuropathic pain. Remarkably, this appetitive value was partially recovered in male nerve injured mice by treatment with the analgesic gabapentin. These behavioral changes were also accompanied by different patterns of neuronal activity throughout the brain, including altered activation of sites that receive direct projections from the spinal cord between sham and nerve injured mice. Together, these findings highlight the plastic nature of these affective tactile circuits under pathological conditions.