Editor's Summary
14 December 2006
A painless explanation
In a few individuals, a congenital condition leaves them completely insensitive to pain. Yet they have an apparently normal nervous system, have normal intelligence and enjoy good health. Apart, that is, from accidents and undetected injuries or infections. The mutation responsible has been mapped in a study of three families in northern Pakistan. The gene, SCN9A, was already known to be linked to pain perception: gain-of-function mutations cause pain hypersensitivity. SCN9A codes for a subunit of a voltage-gated sodium channel that is expressed in pain-sensing neurons. The fact that affected individuals are otherwise well raises the possibility that an agonist specific for this subunit might act as a 'total analgesic' with no side effects.
News and Views: Neurobiology: A channel sets the gain on pain
Nerve impulses that convey pain signals to the brain are produced by sodium channels in the neuronal membrane. Studies on people who are unable to feel pain identify one specific sodium channel as essential to the process.
Stephen G. Waxman
doi:10.1038/444831a
Article: An SCN9A channelopathy causes congenital inability to experience pain
James J. Cox, Frank Reimann, Adeline K. Nicholas, Gemma Thornton, Emma Roberts, Kelly Springell, Gulshan Karbani, Hussain Jafri, Jovaria Mannan, Yasmin Raashid, Lihadh Al-Gazali, Henan Hamamy, Enza Maria Valente, Shaun Gorman, Richard Williams, Duncan P. McHale, John N. Wood, Fiona M. Gribble and C. Geoffrey Woods
doi:10.1038/nature05413
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (541K) | Supplementary information
