Data from Hospital for Sick Children Broaden Understanding of Pain (Similar excitability through different sodium channels and implications for the analgesic efficacy of selective drugs).

A recent study conducted at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada, has shed light on the role of sodium channels in pain perception. The researchers found that different combinations of sodium channels can contribute to the excitability of nociceptors, the sensory neurons responsible for transmitting pain signals to the central nervous system. This finding challenges the notion that the sodium channel NaV1.7 is solely responsible for initiating action potentials in nociceptors. The study suggests that targeting specific sodium channel subtypes for pain relief may be more complex than previously thought, and that a better understanding of the cellular level interactions is needed to develop effective analgesic drugs. [Extracted from the article]