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Diabetic neuropathy in visceral organs such as the gastrointestinal (GI) tract is still poorly understood, despite that GI symptoms are among the most common diabetic complications. The present study was desig...
Chronic stress has been reported to increase basal pain sensitivity and/or exacerbate existing persistent pain. However, most surgical patients have normal physiological and psychological health status such as...
Trigeminal neuralgia is accompanied by severe mechanical, thermal and chemical hypersensitivity of the orofacial area innervated by neurons of trigeminal ganglion (TG). We examined the role of the voltage-gat...
ATP-gated P2X3 receptors are important transducers of nociceptive stimuli and are almost exclusively expressed by sensory ganglion neurons. In mouse trigeminal ganglion (TG), P2X3 receptor function is unexpect...
Altered kallikrein-related peptidase activity and bradykinin are associated with skin disorders in humans and mice under chronic inflammation conditions. The bradykinin B1 receptor (B1R), also known as one of ...
Peripheral cold neuropathic pain is a serious side effect of oxaliplatin treatment. However, the mechanism of oxaliplatin-induced cold hyperalgesia is unknown. In the present study, we investigated the effects...
We have previously shown that endogenously active purinergic P2X7 receptors (P2X7Rs) in satellite glial cells of dorsal root ganglia (DRGs) stimulate ATP release. The ATP activates P2Y1Rs located in the enwrap...
Recent advances in brain imaging have contributed to our understanding of the neural activity associated with acupuncture treatment. In this study, we investigated functional connectivity across longitudinal a...
Molecular mediators influencing the transition from acute to persistent musculoskeletal pain following common stress exposures such as motor vehicle collision (MVC) remain poorly understood. In this explorator...
We evaluated the role of a mechanically-gated ion channel, Piezo2, in mechanical stimulation-induced enhancement of hyperalgesia produced by the pronociceptive vasoactive mediator endothelin-1, an innocuous me...
Presynaptic GABAA receptors (GABAARs) located on central terminals of low threshold afferent fibers are thought to be involved in the processing of touch and possibly in the generation of tactile allodynia in chr...
The mechanisms by which painful injuries are linked to the multitude of pain-related comorbidities and neuroplastic changes in the brain remain poorly understood. Here we propose a model that relies on epi-neu...
The original article was published in Molecular Pain 2015 11:40
Voltage-gated sodium channels (Navs) comprise at least nine pore-forming α subunits. Of these, Nav1.6, Nav1.7, Nav1.8 and Nav1.9 are the most frequently studied in primary sensory neurons located in the dorsal ro...
Increased electrical activity in peripheral sensory neurons including dorsal root ganglia (DRG) and trigeminal ganglia neurons is an important mechanism underlying pain. Voltage gated sodium channels (VGSC) co...
Cuff and spared nerve injury (SNI) in the sciatic territory are widely used to model neuropathic pain. Because nociceptive information is first detected in skin, it is important to understand how alterations i...
Mitochondrial dysfunction is observed in various neuropathic pain phenotypes, such as chemotherapy induced neuropathy, diabetic neuropathy, HIV-associated neuropathy, and in Charcot-Marie-Tooth neuropathy. To ...
Uterine contraction-induced pain (UCP) represents a common and severe form of visceral pain. Nerve fibers that innervate uterine tissue express the transient receptor potential vanilloid channel 1 (TRPV1), whi...
Plastic changes in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) are critical in the pathogenesis of pain hypersensitivity caused by injury to peripheral nerves. Cdh1, a co-activator subunit of anaphase-promoting comple...
Anoctamin 1 (ANO1 or TMEM16A) Ca2+-gated Cl− channels of nociceptor neurons are emerging as important molecular components of peripheral pain transduction. At physiological intracellular Cl− concentrations ([Cl−]
Non-peptidergic nociceptive neurons are a sub-population of small diameter primary sensory neurons that comprise approximately 50 % of the C fiber population. Together with the peptidergic sub-population, they...
LTB4 is classified as a leukotriene (LT), a group of lipid mediators that are derived from arachidonic acid. It is recognized that leukotrienes are involved in the pathogenesis of many diseases, including peri...
Fatty acid binding proteins (FABPs) serve as intracellular carriers that deliver endocannabinoids and N-acylethanolamines to their catabolic enzymes. Inhibition of FABPs reduces endocannabinoid transport and cata...
Arthritis pain is an important healthcare issue with significant emotional and affective consequences. Here we focus on potentially beneficial effects of activating small-conductance calcium-activated potassiu...
The periaqueductal gray region (PAG) is one of several brain areas identified to be vulnerable to structural and functional change following peripheral nerve injury. Sciatic nerve constriction injury (CCI) tri...
The rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC) has been implicated in the negative affective response to injury, and importantly, it has been shown that activation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) ...
Orofacial inflammatory pain is likely to accompany referred pain in uninflamed orofacial structures. The ectopic pain precludes precise diagnosis and makes treatment problematic, because the underlying mechani...
Although alterations in not only the pain sensitivity but also the analgesic effects of opioids have been reported under conditions of stress, the influence of unpredictable chronic mild stress (UCMS) on the a...
Koumine is an alkaloid monomer found abundantly in Gelsemium plants. It has been shown to reverse thermal hyperalgesia and mechanical allodynia induced by sciatic nerve chronic constriction injury (CCI) in rats i...
Hyperexcitability of nociceptive afferent fibers is an underlying mechanism of neuropathic pain and ion channels involved in neuronal excitability are potentially therapeutic targets. KCNQ channels, a subfamil...
Increased nociceptive neuronal excitability underlies chronic pain conditions. Various ion channels, including sodium, calcium and potassium channels have pivotal roles in the control of neuronal excitability....
Neuropathic pain that caused by lesion or dysfunction of the nervous system is associated with gene expression changes in the sensory pathway. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been reported to be able to reg...
Serotonergic raphespinal neurons and their fibers have been mapped in large mammals, but the non-serotonergic ones have not been studied, especially in the mouse. The present study aimed to investigate the ter...
Calcium-activated chloride channels (CaCCs) activation induces membrane depolarization by increasing chloride efflux in primary sensory neurons that can facilitate action potential generation. Previous studies...
Accumulating clinical and preclinical evidence indicates that chronic pain is often comorbid with persistent low mood and anxiety. However, the mechanisms underlying pain-induced anxiety, such as its causality...
The Erratum to this article has been published in Molecular Pain 2015 11:62
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are involved in the neuroplastic changes which induce and maintain neuropathic pain. However, it is unknown whether nerve injury leads to altered miRNA expression and modulation of pain rele...
The clinical efficacy of the Angiotensin II (AngII) receptor AT2R antagonist EMA401, a novel peripherally-restricted analgesic, was reported recently in post-herpetic neuralgia. While previous studies have shown ...
Genome-wide association studies have identified TRPM8 (transient receptor potential melastatin 8) as one of the susceptibility genes for common migraine. Here, we investigated the postnatal changes of TRPM8-expre...
The descending antinociceptive system (DAS) is thought to play crucial roles in the antinociceptive effect of spinal cord stimulation (SCS), especially through its serotonergic pathway. The nucleus raphe magnu...
Neuropathic pain and sensory abnormalities are a debilitating secondary consequence of spinal cord injury (SCI). Maladaptive structural plasticity is gaining recognition for its role in contributing to the dev...
Morphine and fentanyl are opioid analgesics in wide clinical use that act through the μ-opioid receptor (MOR). However, one limitation of their long-term effectiveness is the development of tolerance. Receptor...
Opioid peptides, including dynorphin A, besides their analgesic action in the nervous system, exert a broad spectrum of effects on cells of the immune system, including leukocyte migration, degranulation and c...
Chronic pain is a major public health problem with limited treatment options. Opioids remain a routine treatment for chronic pain, but extended exposure to opioid therapy can produce opioid tolerance and hyper...
Neuropeptide Y (NPY) has been implicated in the modulation of pain. Under normal conditions, NPY is found in interneurons in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord and in sympathetic postganglionic neurons but is ...
Pain in the head neck area is an early symptom in oral cancer, supporting the hypothesis that cancer cells control the activities of surrounding nociceptors at the site of the tumor. Several reports implicate ...
Previous studies have shown that increased excitability of capsaicin-sensitive DRG neurons and thermal hyperalgesia in rats with short-term (2–4 weeks) streptozotocin-induced diabetes is mediated by upregulati...
Pain is the most prominent non-motor symptom observed in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, the mechanisms underlying the generation of pain in PD have not been well studied. We used a 1-methyl-4...
The complexity of chronic pain and the challenges of pharmacotherapy highlight the importance of development of new approaches to pain management. Gene therapy approaches may be complementary to pharmacotherap...
The skin is a morphologically complex organ that serves multiple complementary functions, including an important role in thermoregulation, which is mediated by a rich vasculature that is innervated by sympathe...
Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is oxidized to polysulfide. Recent reports show that this sulfur compound modulates various biological functions. We have reported that H2S is involved in inflammatory pain in mice. On the ...