Chronic pain breakthrough: Control the protein produced by the gene HCN2

Professor
McNaughton
Cambridge.

Deleting the HCN2 gene from mice stopped the agony of neuropathic pain but didn't stop them responding to "owwie" type pain. This suggests drugs can be targeted to block the protein produced by that gene to combat chronic pain in humans.

One form of chronic pain comes when inflammatory pain makes a nerve extra sensitive.  Harder to treat is neuropathic lifelong pain associated with diabetes, shingles after-effect, some lower back pain and cancer chemotherapy. The nerve itself creates the pain signal. Blocking HCN2's production of protein may not be too difficult and finally bring relief.

When we know something hurts and there's nothing we can do to fix the problem, why does the body have to keep reminding us what we already know?  Science Daily News.