Researchers Discover an "Off Switch" For Pain In the Brain 83
concertina226 writes Scientists working together from several international universities have discovered that it is possible to block a pathway in the brain of animals suffering from neuropathic pain, which could have a huge impact on improving pain relief in humans. So far, the most successful ways to treat chronic pain from a pharmacological point of view are to create drugs that that interact or interfere with various channels in the brain to decrease pain, including adrenergic, opioid and calcium receptors. However, there is another way – a chemical stimulator called adenosine that binds to brain receptors to trigger a biological response. Adenosine has shown potential for killing pain in humans, but so far, no one has managed to harness this pain pathway successfully without causing a myriad of side effects. Led by Dr Daniela Salvemini of SLU, the researchers discovered that by activating the A3 adenosine receptor in the rodents' brains and spinal cords, the receptor was able to prevent or reverse pain from nerve damage (the cause of chronic pain).
All or nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
Also makes me wonder if pain caused by emotion or stress would be affected, and to what degree. It's been said that emotional pain is a physical response, the body literally making itself ill or hurt, so I wonder.
Coffee anyone? (Score:2)
Re: Coffee anyone? (Score:1)
All coffee does is make me take a really nasty shit about an hour later.
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As long as it's not a painful shit, the coffee is working.
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Add a strong source of nicotine and you'll be going even sooner. Try a strong snus like Thunder or Oden's.
Your body is trying to tell you something.
Re:All or nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
Doubtful it will be a 'switch' like one thinks about in electronics or logic. It is a complex pathway so there will be plenty of other regulatory and counter regulatory effects. Of interest, is that there are a number of drugs already in trials that work on similar pathways, so it's a bit doubtful that these researchers have found a magic bullet type of thing.
And even if they can shut it off completely in animal studies, it is a long road to developing a useful clinical treatment.
Don't short opium growers just yet.
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Opiates are ineffective for neuropathic pain. current treatment is usually with antidepressants like tricyclics.
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I'm not even going to pretend I RTFA, but I did notice this in the abstract:
Critically, engaging the A3AR mechanism did not alter nociceptive thresholds in non-neuropathy animals and therefore produced selective alleviation of persistent neuropathic pain states.
I'm not sure what it means by selective, whether it is something that can be applied temporarily, or if it can selectively target locations of pain.
Re:All or nothing (Score:5, Informative)
It means what it says it means, that it selectively alleviates neuropathic pain, not all causes of pain. Neuropathic pain originates form damaged nerves, is usually experienced as persistent burning, tingling, pins and needles sensation and doesn't respond well to opiates or nsaids.
Re:All or nothing (Score:5, Interesting)
And, very importantly, is now untreatable. "Sorry, just suck it up" isn't something a doctor likes to say to someone in real pain. It's not always "tingling" or pins and needles.
That it is selective is a great pro. You don't want someone with strong phantom pain in their severed hand to loose the other hand due to an infection that wasn't noticed because the painkillers stopped the important signal with the phantom one.
Missing one hand is already problem. Missing two is an unimaginable problem (at least, I can't imagine it).
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Yep, CIPA is extremely dangerous. You have to self-monitor at all times:
CIP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org]
CIPA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org]
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RTFA, it says it selectively blocks neuropathic pain, not pain from all causes.
Re:All or nothing (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm curious if this'll be an all-or-nothing thing, or if there are degrees of gradation. Pain itself serves good in that it prevents one from doing things that cause it, so we don't injure ourselves.
The article at http://brain.oxfordjournals.or... [oxfordjournals.org] has a short section titled "MRS5698 does not alter normal nociception". That section says, "MRS5698 tested at the highest effective dose had no effect in tests that measure the acute thermal nociceptive component of physiological pain: tail flick and hot-plate (Fig. 2H and I)."
Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] says,
Nociception (also nocioception or nociperception) is the encoding and processing of harmful stimuli in the nervous system,[1] and, therefore, the ability of a body to sense potential harm.
Any doctors here - does that mean pain from danger still is felt, just not chronic pain from damaged nerves?
Re:All or nothing (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd be interested to see if this has an impact on tinnitus, which for most people who suffer it, is like audio neuropathic pain.
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Except in the case of PTSD, the symtom is really all that matters.
Re: All or nothing (Score:1)
Psychedelics have been proven to treat and even cure PTSD...
But you'd rather see someone on sedatives for the rest of their life than take a dose of LSD/psyllicibyn (in a therapudic setting) and deal with PTSD symptoms permanatly by addressing the root of the problem?
Hell, look into DMT - that can benefit all manner of trauma induced psychological problems.
Or you know... Keep buying pills the rest of your life to minimise the symptoms rather than treating the cause.
BigPharma thanks you!
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Easy there tiger. You're going off half-cocked and hearing what you want to hear. He was talking about a treatment where the emotional trauma of the memories is reduced in the long term by emotionally numbing the patient for a limited duration so that the memories become associated with milder feelings than the ones originally imprinted. Your suggestion of using psychedelics probably has a similar method of action, but they are not contradictory, and the parent post was certainly not advocating that the PTS
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Chronic pain is much different than regular pain, there is nothing good that comes from chronic pain.Chronic pain is currently ruining my life. It really is almost impossible to do anything and enjoy life while the entire time your back is saying "You want to go for walk today with your wife, fuck you. You want to walk down some stairs hahaha fuck you again"
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Awesome (Score:1)
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"My mates and I could never get laid, but then we discovered Homify."
Hope that it is true. (Score:1)
As someone who suffers from multiple radicuopathies ( bad spelling, but root nerve inpinchment) this would be great news. Too bad it will be another 10 years before it is available even if it does work. And another 5 years before it is yanked from the market for causing some fatal illness.
As for the three types methods to treat pain, it's a bit of stretch. Opiates are really the only direct method that works well, Sure, the usage of anti-depressants might work but I find that my mind is a total sieve and
Introduction already $$$ (Score:2)
Wow, the introduction already goes into the money aspect. They write, "Chronic pain is an enormous unmet medical need with a multi-billion dollar impact on society"
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Enough about Microsoft! What about those suffering physical pain?
Re:Introduction already $$$ (Score:4, Interesting)
There is if course nothing more profitable that treating the symptoms rather than curing the affliction, yet they always cry the loudest when they succeed at treating the symptoms without curing the affliction, bless their greedy little hearts. Personally I would like to hear more about stem cell therapy to repair damaged nerves.
Re:Introduction already $$$ (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the thing, there are some forms of nerve damage that we currently don't have a cure for, there are far more that we don't even understand well enough to have an idea for a cure, and there are some that are so poorly understood, even significant swaths of the medical community doubt that they are real and accuse patients of being drug seekers.
For example: Fibromyalgia. It isn't a disease in it's own right, it is a classification of a set of symptoms that have not been able to be attached to a source. There are lots of theories and progress is being made in the field. But when the causes could be genetic, dietary, environmental, psychological, or even sleep related, any step forward could be helpful for some subset of FM sufferers, but leave the rest without aid.
If this approach can be made to work, it would mean that virtually all of the FM sufferers in the world could lead a normal life, while at the same time research continues on the underlying causes of their conditions.
When you wake up every day and have to see your spouse, your child, or your friends in agony because for no meaningful reason their brain decides that they should feel like every joint is coated with sandpaper, that every muscle is strained and torn, that every tendon is inflamed, then any option, even one that profits some greedy ass in a suit, becomes a miracle.
-Rick
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Pretty insensitive aren't you, I thought you would have guessed why I had a preference for cure over symptoms. By the way I found the best way to handle pain, was to put up with it during the day and only take pain relief in the evening. This allows natural pain relievers to continue to be produced and helps to prevent tolerance to analgesics developing. So an uncomfortable day but maximum relief at say tea time and before going to sleep, especially when the analgesics combine with natural pain relievers w
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We already know this... (Score:3)
Vulcan Science Academy has been studying this going back to the time of Surak.
Ending pain (Score:3)
This is one of the big frontiers of humanity.
There is little a person won't do to stop pain. A simple way to stop it with no consequences for the person nor society would solve a huge lot of other problems.
Combine this with Fear switch (Score:1)
Re:Combine this with Fear switch (Score:4, Insightful)
Really. You don't think fear makes humans dangerous?
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No, that's Red Bull.
Why don't they study the cause of the pain ? (Score:3, Interesting)
I am the last to say chronic pains are not real, but I do know that chronic pains are most of the time a symptom of something else, and way too many people are diagnosed with chronic pains. Doctors say they can't treat something and you have to live with it, though many times that is simply wrong. My wife was diagnosed with 'chronic pain' by 6 independent doctors. Number 7 said she should stop drinking milk. Pain is almost completely gone. I myself have been walking around with Irritable Bowel Syndrome for years. Stopped eating Gluten and the Syndrome is gone.
We have way too many "diseases" which are nothing but a name for clueless doctors and a failing medical system. My basic rule is: If you broke something: Go see a doctor. If you have something that's a bit more vague: See someone who understands how the human body works. And yes, I now refer to for example good acupuncture, chiropractic or homeopathic doctors. Unfortunately you also have a lot of crap there.
Mindfulness is the best pain killer (Score:1)
Have only been meditating for a year now and amazed at the ability to accept that pain is all in the mind. Two simple questions I mentally ask myself when encountering pain immediately reduce the severity. "What shape is this pain?" and "What colour is this pain?". Studies have proven that experienced meditators have the highest pain threshold ever recorded, it's a shame my western education made me discount the power of meditation and promoted the use of medication. I'm not completely against medicatio
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That's the reason why you're addicted to coffee (Score:2)
Depending on
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There's a similar mechanism behind how opiate addiction works, and that's why withdrawal from that is one of the worst things ever.
I guess it'd be more useful, if possible, to find a way to block the brain from making more receptors and from manufacturing antagonists for those receptors so one can keep getting the same effect from the agonist. (A cure for tolerance and for chemical dependence? They'd never fund it. They're more concerned with 'blocking pleasurable effects'.)
Captcha: sinister
This is not news (Score:2)
I figured out how to disable beta months ago.
Morphine (Score:2)
That's the day I throw my drugs away." RIP, Mark Sandman
But...but... (Score:2)
Don't you see? We don't actually WANT a replacement for marijuana. Why can't you just let us smoke our weed in peace?
Full disclosure:I don't smoke or take drugs, but I think cigarettes are WAAAAAAAYYYY more dangerous than weed, considering the normal usage patterns.
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Does it actually help people with, say, burning stinging diabetic feet?