Empowered Patient Podcast Treating the Brain to Address Long-Term Chronic Pain with Andy Kidd MD Aptinyx
Andy Kidd MD is the President and COO and soon to be CEO of Aptinyx. With a focus on Pain Awareness Month, Andy provides a view into the world of treating long-term chronic pain and the necessary innovations to treat the cause of chronic pain in conditions like diabetic peripheral neuropathy and fibromyalgia.
Andy explains, "So we've discovered and are developing a new drug that has a new mechanism for chronic pain. And actually, it really takes that problem of what is happening in the brain head-on because our drug works in the brain, particularly in the part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex. That is really responsible for how we control and regulate our behavior, what we pay attention to, what we don't pay attention to, how our emotions are affected by things that we're sensing in the environment, and things like that. So we are really trying to tackle this part of the chronic pain problem that has been probably under-recognized in the past and for which there really aren't any good therapies right now."
"The goal would be that our drug works as it is supposed to, and it works on a receptor called the NMDA receptor in the brain, which is basically responsible for how the brain cells communicate and connect to each other. By boosting its activity, the goal would be to restore normal function, some of these parts of the brain that may then help the patient reduce the perception of pain. It may help the patient with some of the consequences of the pain around those things like sleep and mood and cognition."
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