Researchers have found a new approach for the treatment of chronic pain: destroy a small group of spinal cord nerve cells pivots with a chemical " smart bomb. " Treatment is less sensitive to pain rats, according to a study published in the current issue of Science . If the strategy works in humans, it could become an alternative to morphine.
Chronic pain is associated with a range of illnesses and injuries, but its cause is often quite mysterious. Sufferers may experience severe pain and unabated long after the original source - tissue damage, for example - seems to have healed. Often the pain is aggravated by innocuous stimuli, such as pressure of a blanket or even a gentle breeze against your skin.
Previous research had indicated Some, however, that neurons of the spinal cord that communicate using a neurotransmitter called substance P plays a role in chronic pain. So neurobiologist Mantyh Patrick and colleagues at the University of Minnesota and Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Minneapolis found a way to kill only those neurons in rats. They attached to the substance P saporin, a toxin that brings the ribosomes of the protein assembly of the cell stopped. Then they infused hybrid molecule in the spinal cord of rats. Nerve cells that normally bind substance P also took in the complex -. and died after the toxin released their ribosomes
to see if it would go against chronic pain, the team induced the condition in rats. Even a slight pressure on the legs would cause animals to jerk them back - a response that mostly disappeared in the rats given the complex P-saporin substance. However, the rats reacted still really painful stimuli, a response that could be moistened with morphine. This is important Mantyh said, because doctors are not likely to advise their patients to undergo this kind of treatment if it were to make morphine analgesic their best, ineffective.
"These are very important experiences," said Tony Yaksh of the University of California, San Diego, who looks forward to any new approach for the treatment of patients with cancer, arthritis or other diseases associated with chronic pain. before the technique strikes clinics, however, Mantyh team should look for side effects and test the therapy in larger animals before proceeding to human trials. Finally, Mantyh said, perhaps the treatment would use a chemical that stuns rather than destroys neurons.
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