TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2014//
TI  - Skin and self-injury: a possible link between peripheral innervation and immune function?
JO  - Developmental medicine and child neurology
A1  - Symons, Frank J.
A1  - Gilles, Elizabeth
A1  - Tervo, Raymond
A1  - Wendelschafer-Crabb, Gwen
A1  - Panoutsopoulou, Ioanna
A1  - Kennedy, William
SP  - ePub
EP  - ePub
VL  - ePub
IS  - ePub
N2  - 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.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0012-1622
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/dmcn.12580
ID  - ref1
ER  -