Effects of neonatal capsaicin deafferentation on neuromuscular adjustments, performance, and afferent activities from adult tibialis anterior muscle during exercise

To investigate the role played by muscle afferents in the sensorimotor loops, we measured the effects of capsaicin injection in newborns on the mechano- and metabosensitive discharges and the running performance at adulthood. Female Sprague Dawley rats received a subcutaneous injection of either 50 mg/kg capsaicin or solvent (10% ethanol, 10% Tween 80 in 0.9% saline) during their second day of life. These two groups were compared with a control, untreated group. Four months later, treadmill running performance and muscle afferent (mechanosensitive and metabosensitive) activities from the tibialis anterior muscle were measured. The capsaicin-treated group demonstrated a reduced maximal exercise capacity (time to exhaustion) and a reduced response of muscle metabosensitive fibers (group III and IV nerve endings) to the examined stimuli (arterial KCl and lactic acid injections, electrically induced fatigue) compared with the sham-injected solvent and control groups. Group IV afferent responses were absent in the compound nerve action potentials evoked by peripheral nerve stimulation. The response to mechanosensitive fibers to tendon vibration was also affected in the capsaicin group compared with the control and sham-injected groups, which presented a bimodal response corresponding to the activation of muscle spindles and Golgi tendon organs. Finally, measurements of the force developed by the tibialis anterior muscle from the beginning to the end of a 3-min muscle stimulation revealed a more significant fall in the capsaicin group compared with the others. The present experiments reveal that the pharmacological alteration of muscular metabosensitive afferent resulted in drastic changes in the neuromuscular sensory encoding and in the central neural network that could accelerate failure of the task during fatigue. (C) 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc.