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Pain Gene Found In Flies, Mice And People May Have Links To Creativity

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/207629.php

A newly discovered gene which helps to control the sense of pain is linked to

synaesthesia, when sensations such as touch also affect other senses like

hearing or sight. The rare condition causes some people to see sounds or written

words as colours, or experience tastes, smells and shapes in linked

combinations. Famous synaesthetes include composers Franz Liszt or Olivier

Messiaens, and this condition has been linked to creativity and intelligence.

Now Austrian medical researchers have identified a gene variation which reduces

the sense of pain, giving hope for future treatments of pain sufferers,

according to new research published in the journal Cell today (12 November

2010). Around one in five people around the world suffer from acute or chronic

pain, with all its financial costs and emotional burden. Studies of twins have

shown that at least half of the differences in the way we are sensitive to pain

is inherited.

Scientists at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy

of Sciences in Vienna, led by f Penninger and Greg Neely, together with

Clifford Woolf of Harvard Medical School, Boston, developed a system in fruit

flies to model pain perception. The system allowed them to screen nearly the

entire set of the fly's genes in search for those that affect the insect's

response to noxious heat. After identifying 600 pain genes the researchers

closed in on one known as & #945;2 & #948;3 which is involved in calcium ion

channels. Doctors already know that these tiny pores in the cell membrane are

targeted by some existing analgesics, helping to relieve pain, so it seemed a

promising candidate gene for further studies.

The next stage was to test whether the & #945;2 & #948;3 gene also affects the way

people feel heat and pain. Doctors in the USA looked at four different

single-letter variations in DNA, within or close to the & #945;2 & #948;3 gene in

189 healthy volunteers. They found that some of the gene variations led to

reduced sensitivity to acute pain in a test which gives the volunteer a quick

series of heat pulses. Further testing in 169 patients who had undergone surgery

for back pain caused by damaged discs showed that patients with these same gene

variations were much less likely to have persisting chronic pain.

The research team then looked directly into the brain of mice with mutant

& #945;2 & #948;3 genes with MRI scanners and, in cooperation with the group of

s Hess in Erlangen, Germany, showed that this gene controls the way heat

pain signals are processed in the brain. In the mutant mice the nerve signals

arrive in the brain correctly at the thalamus, a first pain processing centre,

but are not properly sent on to the higher processing centres in the cortex,

which should alert the animals to the sensation of pain. Instead the researchers

found that areas in the brain cortex for sight, smell and hearing were being

activated by the pain signal. Thus, the team stumbled upon the first ever known

gene that appears to control sensory cross-activation or synaesthesia a

neurological condition where a stimulus of one sense triggers perception of

another sense.

" To find that our mice showed sensory cross-activation was the most stunning

result of our study, it was something we never looked for " , says f

Penninger. " Multiple forms of synaesthesia exist including pain stimuli that

trigger colour. Synaesthesia might affect up to 4% of the population, shows

genetic linkage, and has been associated with intelligence and creativity. Thus,

& #945;2 & #948;3 mutant mice might provide the first ever animal model to enable

us to study the phenomenon of sensory cross-activation. This might open up an

entirely new field of biology. "

" Genes give us an amazing and powerful tool to begin to understand how pain is

generated, and which functional pathways and specific proteins are involved " ,

says Dr Woolf. " Understanding the molecular basis of pain will lead to the

development of new analgesics, the identification of risk factors for chronic

pain and improved decision-making about the suitability of surgical treatment

for different patients " .

Source: Institute of Molecular Biotechnology

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