Neuropathic Pain
Pain is a very important sensation in our body. We need to feel pain because it warns our body against danger. For Eg: when you put your hand close to a stove, you experience pain indicating you should remove your hand from the stove.
But, for certain people with a damaged nerve, they experience either a false pain i.e. pain without a stimuli or they do not experience any. When they do get a false one, it is stabbing and pricking and is called neuropathic pain. Over the Counter medicines like Ibuprofen cannot relieve such pain. The most commonly used drug to treat this is Gabapentin. Despite being the first line of treatment for chronic pain, it has a lot of side effects.
Target for pain killers
The most relvant target for such pain killers is the Cav2.2 calcium channel. It is expressed on the sensory neurons of animal models of neuropathic pain.
Small Molecule inhibitor
A promising candidate in the form of a small molecule was identified by a team of scientists led by Rajesh Khanna. It could block the interaction between the calcium channel and a molecule called CRMP2. This linkage is crucial for the function of the calcium channel. This not only totally reversed the chronic pain arising due to Neuropathic pain, but also did not have side effects.
Do you want to know more about the promising drug, how it was discovered and it’s mode of actions? Click here to read more.
Insightful article 👍🏻
Great, I like this three-minute-read format and look forward to more interesting topics.
Sure, many more three-minute reads coming up soon.