We all know that if you put your hand over an open flame it’s very painful. What you may not know is that, for some people, just lying under a blanket is painful as well. They have neuropathic pain--annoying, chronic pain that comes from a diseased nerve cell rather than a specific stimulus. Feeling phantom pain in a missing limb is another, more famous, example. Experts say up to two percent of the U.S. population suffers from neuropathic pain. But this pain generally responds poorly to analgesics and other standard treatment and get worse over time, causing permanent disability in some people. Now there may be new hope for these pain sufferers. Scientists at the University of Virginia Health System have identified a new type of pain-sensing neuron in rats, which are unusually dense in a subtype of calcium channels called T-type channels. It is possible that these “T-rich cells” could be targets for future therapies to treat neuropathic pain as well as acute onset pain, which can happen after invasive surgery or inflammation.
