Citation

Symons FJ, Gilles E, Tervo R, Wendelschafer-Crabb G, Panoutsopoulou I, Kennedy W. Dev. Med. Child Neurol. 2014; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Department of Educational Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA; Department of Pediatrics, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Mac Keith Press, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/dmcn.12580

PMID

25185892

Abstract

The aim of this preliminary case study series was to investigate epidermal innervation in pediatric patients with significant neurological impairment and self-injurious behavior. We enrolled four pediatric patients with self-injury (two males, two females; mean age 12y, range 9-14y) and used archival specimens from healthy, age-matched children with typical development for comparison purposes. Epidermal nerve fiber density, peptide content, and mast cell degranulation patterns from non-damaged skin were tested between the patients and the comparison group. The male patients with self-injury had significantly increased epidermal nerve fiber densities, increased substance P positive fiber count and extensive mast cell degranulation compared with sex- and age-matched individuals with typical development. Our case series shows for the first time altered peripheral innervation from non-damaged tissue in children with significant self-injury and developmental disability compared with a healthy comparison group. Establishing the role of peripheral nociceptive and immune modulatory neural pathways may offer new treatment avenues for this devastating neurobehavioral disorder.

Language: en