Silencing neuropathic pain

The seemingly intractable nature of neuropathic pain has led drug developers to look beyond classical receptor and transporter protein targets and explore the emerging field of epigenetics to find new options. Now, researchers at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have found a potential target based on the discovery that nerve injury upregulates a long noncoding RNA that silences voltage-gated potassium channel Kv1.2 exclusively in damaged neurons.¹

Neuropathic pain develops after nerves are damaged by injury, viral infection or disease, which set up the nervous system's controls to go awry. Under these conditions, neurons spontaneously fire signals to the brain, sending pain messages even when there is no physical stimulus...