Electrophysiological Characterization of SCG Neurons

The methods for the SCG neuron acquisition and whole-cell patch-clamp recording were described in our previous reports [7 (link),8 (link),9 ,10 (link)]. In short, SCG slices were cut, digested in the enzyme solution (50–60 min, 37 °C), and dispersed gently with glass tubes into a single neuron. For the enzyme solution, 0.6–0.7 g/L pronase E (Roche, Basel, Switzerland), 1.7–1.8 g/L collagenase type II (Worthington, Lakewood, CO, USA), and 7.0–8.0 g/L bovine serum albumin (Roche, Basel, Switzerland) were added to the incubation solution (NaCl 130 mmol/L, MgCl₂ 1 mmol/L, KCl 5 mmol/L, glucose 10 mmol/L, CaCl₂ 2 mmol/L, NaH₂PO₄ 1.5 mmol/L, NaHCO₃ 25 mmol/L, and HEPES 10 mmol/L). Here, we mainly recorded the characteristics of the delayed rectifier potassium channel current (I_K), sodium channel current (I_Na), and N-type calcium channel current (I_Ca). The data was recorded using Axopach 200B patch-clamp systems and analyzed using Clampex 10.2 software (Axon, Scottsdale, AZ, USA).