Persistent sensitivity to noxious and innocuous somatic stimuli results from peripheral nerve
injury. Following chronic constriction injury (CCI) of the sciatic nerve in the rat, the hind paw
ipsilateral to the injury displays significantly decreased response latencies to a noxious heat
stimulus (thermal hyperalgesia), compared with the contralateral uninjured paw. The ligated
paw also shows increased lifting and duration of lifting from a cooled (4±1 C) surface. To
characterize the peripheral nerve component of increased sensitivity to cold, CCI rats were …