Pain afflicts at least 1.5 billion people worldwide, and despite the availability of various painkilling drugs, not all forms of pain are treatable. Moreover, pain medications can have side-effects such as dependence and tolerance, especially in the case of morphine and other opioids.
In search of novel painkillers, researchers at Butantan Institute's Special Pain and Signaling Laboratory (LEDS) in São Paulo, Brazil, studied TRPV1, a sensory neuron receptor that captures noxious stimuli, including heat and the burning sensation conveyed by chili peppers, and discovered a potential pain insensitivity mutation in the gene that encodes this protein. They report their findings in an article published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
The study was conducted in partnership with Stanford University and Emory University in the United States, and Münster University Hospital in Germany. The researchers analyzed a number of mutations in humans and also benefited from existing knowledge of birds, which unlike mammals have a TRPV1 receptor that is naturally resistant to noxious…