Pain

You may think that we’ve got a good handle on the organs in the body by now, but it turns out that the final count is surprisingly contentious. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden claim to have discovered a new sensory organ in the skin that’s involved in pain detection and response.

By studying the way pain works in injured fruit flies, scientists have for the first time uncovered evidence that its effects can be long-lasting, something they say opens up new opportunities for more effective treatments for chronic pain in humans.

A study is reporting successful clinical trial results for a new orally administered iteration in a novel class of drugs designed to treat migraine, ahead of a potential FDA approval later this year. But some scientists are questioning how clinically useful these new migraine drugs actually are. ​

A compelling new study from scientists at McGill University has, for the first time, described precise microbiome alterations that can be confidently correlated with fibromyalgia, a disease fundamentally characterized by widespread chronic pain.

A new study has developed a novel method to tame one of the world’s most potent toxins, tetrodotoxin, commonly found in the pufferfish. The research demonstrates a way to control the spread of the toxin and harness it into a local anesthetic that can numb targeted regions for up to three days.

Mole-rats are pretty amazing animals, with a remarkable resistance to pain. A new study has uncovered the molecular reasons for the pain insensitivity, which could eventually lead to new pain relief techniques for human use.

A woman in Scotland has been found to have a previously-unknown genetic mutation that makes her almost completely immune to pain. Her wounds heal faster and she seems to have less anxiety and fear. Geneticists are now studying the genes responsible to uncover new potential treatments for pain relief

A new study has homed in on the relationship between sleep and pain using brain imaging to identify the differences in neural activity while processing pain. The results revealed sleep deprivation seems to block the parts of the brain that release natural analgesics in relation to pain sensitivity.

​A new study isolated a bundle of neurons that are responsible for the negative emotional experience associated with pain. This insight into how pain is processed could lead to non-opioid treatments for chronic pain that eliminate the unpleasant feeling accompanying pain.​

A team of researchers has developed a new method that is claimed to objectively measure pain levels. The system uses electroencephalography (EEG) to identify oscillations in certain brainwaves that have been found to clearly correlate with commonly used pain assessment tools.

​Researchers at Northwestern University have shown that sugar pill placebos are as effective as any drug on the market for relieving chronic pain in people with a certain brain anatomy and psychological characteristics.

Researchers appear to have found a promising alternative to opioid pain killers in the form of a chemical compound called AT-121. With promising results seen in non-human primates, hopes are high the compound will work just as well in people.