pain

Inhibiting a protein isoform in the spinal cord alongside morphine improves the opioid’s pain-relieving properties without increasing unwanted side effects.

Leishmania parasites often cause puzzlingly painless lesions. Scientists are beginning to dig into the mechanisms underlying this pain-blocking effect.

Not all degenerated intervertebral discs are painful; a new study identified a subset of disc cells that triggers a pathway to pain.

Researchers find that bacteria stimulate a headache-causing pain pathway to suppress the immune system and infect the brain. 

A mouse study concludes color-detecting cones in the eye and a subset of neurons in the brain’s thalamus are why green light exposure has an analgesic effect.

Whether the finding of a novel mechanism for cancer-related pain can lead to better treatments for neuropathic pain in people remains to be seen.

A peptide found in bull ant venom closely resembles a hormone of its primary predator, triggering hypersensitivity and making subsequent bites even more painful than the ones that came before.

The device can chill nerves as small as a few millimeters across, but more testing and modifications are necessary before it could relieve pain in humans.

And how do scientists go about answering that question?

The University of Guelph neuroscientist is scoping out the brain regions and genes that change as a consequence of pain that lasts for months or even years.

Human data and experiments in mice challenge the common use of anti-inflammatory drugs to treat pain.

Abnormal sympathetic neuron growth leads to simultaneous activation of clusters of sensory neurons, causing the difficult-to-treat sensation.

David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian won this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their research on the ion channels involved in perceiving heat, cold, pain, and touch.

Prolonged exposure to morphine triggers cells in the spine to release signaling molecules that increase pain sensitivity and dull the relief of the drug. Blocking this activity could improve pain management.

Patients in a small trial said their chronic pain improved an average of 90 percent over the course of 15 days, but returned shortly after the electrical stimulation sessions ended.

Research in mice suggests that moderating nerve activity with drugs or electrical pulses could modify tissue immune responses, curtailing the chronic pain often associated with inflammatory conditions.

Ted Price, Diana Tavares-Ferreira, and Stephanie Shiers discuss how mapping gene expression at the neuronal level provides insight into pain mechanisms and anti-pain drug development.

After resigning from the University of New England last year, Geoffrey Bove continues to study the effects of massage on rats in a facility he set up in his house.