Pain, Pain Genes, and Pain Resilience Genes with Stephen Waxman

Chronic pain is common and places major burdens on affected individuals, their families, and health care systems. Available treatments are often ineffective and in the case of opioids are highly addictive. Here professor Stephen Waxman of Yale University School of Medicine talks about the discovery of genes that encode proteins in the sensory neurons that convey pain signals. Studies of families in which pain syndromes are inherited identified three such “pain genes” each of which encodes a sodium (Na+) channel in neurons that sense pain. Waxman has shown that mutations in one of the Na+ channels – Nav1.7 – result in hyperexcitability of the neurons and chronic extreme pain. He is working with pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs that selectively block Nav1.7 and so reduce pain. This research is likely to lead to non-addictive drugs that are effective in reducing or eliminating pain.

Links:

Professor Waxman’s webpage: https://medicine.yale.edu/profile/stephen_waxman/?tab=news

Book “Chasing Men on Fire: The Story of the Search for the Pain Gene: https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Men-Fire-Story-Search/dp/0262037408

Sodium channels and pain: https://journals.physiology.org/doi/epdf/10.1152/physrev.00052.2017

Pain Resilience: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7519173/pdf/nihms-1585946.pdf