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Casting light on pain

Nature Biotechnology volume 32, pages 240–241 (2014)Cite this article

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Optogenetic methods to control nociceptors open up a wealth of potential applications in pain research and therapy.

Which sensory neurons mediate the initiation of pain, and how can we modulate them to reduce human suffering? Progress in addressing these questions has been slowed by technical limitations of our experimental tools for manipulating the pain transduction system. Now, work by Iyer et al.1 in this issue and by Daou et al.2 in The Journal of Neuroscience provides exciting optogenetic approaches for manipulating peripheral pain pathways in freely moving mice. Because these methods enable selective activation or inhibition of specific sensory fibers by light with high temporal resolution, they will enable various research and clinical applications related to pain, including drug screening. They also offer a means of evaluating new optogenetic tools for the study of the central and peripheral nervous system.

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Figure 1: Optogenetic control of peripheral pain pathways.

Katie Vicari

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. and the Department of Neurobiology, Liam E. Browne and Clifford J. Woolf are at the F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.,

    Liam E Browne & Clifford J Woolf

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  1. Liam E Browne
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  2. Clifford J Woolf
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Correspondence to Clifford J Woolf.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Browne, L., Woolf, C. Casting light on pain. Nat Biotechnol 32, 240–241 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.2844

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