Analgesia Mediated by the TRPM8 Cold Receptor in Chronic Neurophathic Pain

Current Biology, August 2006; Vol 16, pp. 1591-1605; doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2006.07.061; Clare Proudfoot, Emer Garry, David Cottrell, Roberta Rosie, Heather Anderson, Darren Robertson, Susan Fleetwood-Walker, and Rory Mitchell

Abstract Content:  Chronic established pain, especially that following nerve injury, is difficult to treat and represents a largely unmet therapeutic need. New insights are urgently required, and we reasoned that endogenous processes such as cooling-induced analgesia may point the way to novel strategies for intervention. Molecular receptors for cooling have been identified in sensory nerves, and we demonstrate how activation of one of these, TRPM8, produces profound, mechanistically novel analgesia in chronic pain states.