drug development

Pain researchers are well aware that microglia play a critical role in pain sensitization after nerve injury. Known as the immune cells of the central nervous system, microglia drive…

Dendritic spines – small protrusions from the dendrites of neurons – have been familiar to neuroscientists for more than a century, especially to those studying the neuronal mechanisms of…

The pain field has seen its share of disappointment on the drug development front, to the point where the so-called “failure of translation” has become an unavoidable cliché. But…

It is a cruel irony that the same drugs used to treat migraine headache can themselves cause headache. But the underlying causes of this phenomenon, known as medication-overuse headache…

There are no effective treatments to prevent or reverse osteoarthritis (OA), a progressive, degenerative condition where joint cartilage, joint structures, and underlying bone come under attack. Nor are there…

Botulinum toxin, a neurotoxin made by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, inhibits neuronal signaling by blocking neurotransmitter release, leading to paralysis. Researchers from University College London (UCL), UK; the University…

Opioids provide rapid and potent pain relief, but these drugs are associated with numerous side effects, including respiratory depression, tolerance, dependence, and addiction. Now, a new study led by…

Developing safer opioids remains a long-held goal of pain researchers, who have especially set their sights on the mu opioid receptor (MOR). Agonists that bind MORs can activate multiple…

Troves of preclinical data initially supported a key role for substance P, a neurotransmitter released in response to painful stimuli, in chronic pain. In clinical trials, however, highly selective…

Activation of the kappa opioid receptor (KOR) relieves pain and itch. However, downstream recruitment of β-arrestin proteins and accompanying dysphoria—a feeling of discomfort or aversion—and sedation prevent drugs targeting…

Voltage-gated sodium channels found in sensory neurons—and the channel dubbed Nav1.7 in particular—are prime targets when it comes to developing the next generation of pain drugs. Nav1.7 is an…

Opioids are a mainstay in treating many kinds of pain but are accompanied by troubling side effects and abuse potential that limit their use. The search for opioids that…

On January 11, pharmaceutical giant Biogen Idec announced that it would acquire Convergence Pharmaceuticals, a small UK company that has developed a compound aimed at alleviating neuropathic pain by…

Interest in pain is on the rise at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), said Nora Volkow, chief of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, welcoming participants to…

“It was pretty embarrassing,” said Gary Bennett of McGill University, Montreal, Canada. It was 2005, and his group had been working on a rat model of paclitaxel-induced peripheral neuropathy.…

Although spiders, snakes, and other poisonous predators get a bad rap, the diverse and highly specific peptides found in their venoms have proven quite useful for uncovering the function…