Dorsal Root Ganglion Neuron

A neurons cell type of the human nervous system.

Peripheral sensory neuron whose cell body sits in a dorsal root ganglion and relays pain, touch, temperature, itch, and proprioception from the body to the spinal cord.

Function

Primary sensory neurons carrying somatosensory information — touch, proprioception, temperature, itch, and nociception — from the periphery to the spinal cord; pseudounipolar with peripheral and central axon branches.

Morphology

Pseudounipolar: a single stem axon bifurcates into a peripheral branch (to the receptor) and a central branch (to the dorsal horn); soma size varies by subtype (small nociceptors to large myelinated proprioceptors).

Specification

  • Neurotransmitter: Glutamate (fast excitatory transmitter at central terminals)
  • Co-transmitters: Substance P (TAC1); CGRP (CALCA) in peptidergic nociceptor subsets
  • Receptors: TRPV1; Piezo2
  • Location: Dorsal root ganglia (paired, segmental; in the intervertebral foramina)
  • Projections: Spinal cord (Dorsal horn); Periphery
  • Firing: Phasic (stimulus-dependent)
  • Markers: Pan: PRPH (peripherin), NEFH (NF200), POU4F1/BRN3A, ISL1. Subtype: NTRK1/TrkA + CALCA/CGRP or P2RX3 (nociceptors), NTRK2/TrkB (mechanoreceptors), NTRK3/TrkC + RET (proprioceptors), TRPV1 (heat nociceptors)
  • Developmental origin: Neural crest
  • Disease: Neuropathic pain; sensory ataxia; small-fibre/sensory neuropathies; herpes zoster (DRG latency); hereditary sensory and autonomic neuropathies
  • Cell Ontology: CL:1001451

References

  1. Caterina MJ, Schumacher MA, Tominaga M, Rosen TA, Levine JD, & Julius D (1997). The capsaicin receptor: a heat-activated ion channel in the pain pathway.. Nature 389 PMID 9349813
  2. Usoskin D et al. (2015). Unbiased classification of sensory neuron types by large-scale single-cell RNA sequencing.. Nature neuroscience 18 PMID 25420068

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