Foulkes, T;
Wood, JN;
(2008)
Pain Genes.
PLoS Genetics
, 4
(7)
, Article e1000086. 10.1371/journal.pgen.1000086.
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Abstract
Pain, which afflicts up to 20% of the population at any time, provides both a massive therapeutic challenge and a route to understanding mechanisms in the nervous system. Specialised sensory neurons (nociceptors) signal the existence of tissue damage to the central nervous system (CNS), where pain is represented in a complex matrix involving many CNS structures. Genetic approaches to investigating pain pathways using model organisms have identified the molecular nature of the transducers, regulatory mechanisms involved in changing neuronal activity, as well as the critical role of immune system cells in driving pain pathways. In man, mapping of human pain mutants as well as twin studies and association studies of altered pain behaviour have identified important regulators of the pain system. In turn, new drug targets for chronic pain treatment have been validated in transgenic mouse studies. Thus, genetic studies of pain pathways have complemented the traditional neuroscience approaches of electrophysiology and pharmacology to give us fresh insights into the molecular basis of pain perception.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Pain Genes |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pgen.1000086 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1000086 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2008 Foulkes, Wood. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
| Keywords: | QUANTITATIVE TRAIT LOCI, DORSAL-ROOT GANGLIA, HEREDITARY SENSORY NEUROPATHY, CHANNEL ALPHA-SUBUNIT, INSECT SODIUM-CHANNEL, INBRED MOUSE STRAINS, OPIOID RECEPTOR GENE, MORPHINE ANTINOCICEPTION, CAPSAICIN RECEPTOR, INFLAMMATORY PAIN |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Medicine UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Medicine > Wolfson Inst for Biomedical Research |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/126496 |
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