Complexity Digest 2007.39 - 17.01

12-Oct-2007

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Neuroscience: A Local Route To Pain Relief, Nature Bookmark and Share

Excerpts: Local anaesthetics stop pain, but block all other sensations too. In rats, one molecular delivery vehicle makes an unusual local anaesthetic specific for pain - provided a little spice is added to the mix first. (...)

To those in the know, an anaesthetic seems the last place to look for an analgesic effect. When you are numbed for the dentist's drill, the anaesthetic used blocks all the voltage-gated sodium channels in a nerve. These are proteins that conduct action potentials in nerve axons by timing, with submillisecond precision, the flow of current in the form of sodium ions across cell membranes.