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Scientists Take big Step Toward Finding Non-Addictive Painkiller:
With the support of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, scientists at Wake Forest School of Medicine have been working to find a safe, non-addictive pain killer to help fight the current opioid crisis in this country.
And they may have done just that, though in an animal model.
Known as AT-121, the new chemical compound has dual therapeutic action that suppressed the addictive effects of opioids and produced morphine-like analgesic effects in non-human primates.
"In our study, we found AT-121 to be safe and non-addictive, as well as an effective pain medication," said Mei-Chuan Ko, Ph.D., professor of physiology and pharmacology at the School of Medicine, part of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.
"In addition, this compound also was effective at blocking abuse potential of prescription opioids, much like buprenorphine does for heroin, so we hope it could be used to treat pain and opioid abuse."
The findings are published in the Aug. 29 issue of the journal Science Translational Medicine.
The main objective of this study was to design and test a chemical compound that would work on both the mu opioid receptor, the main component in the most effective prescription pain killers, and the nociceptin receptor, which opposes or blocks the abuse and dependence-related side effects of mu-targeted opioids. Current opioid pain drugs, such as fentanyl and oxycodone, work only on the mu opioid receptor, which also produces unwanted side effects -- respiratory depression, abuse potential, increased sensitivity to pain and physical dependence.
"We developed AT-121 that combines both activities in an appropriate balance in one single molecule, which we think is a better pharmaceutical strategy than to have two drugs to be used in combination," Ko said.
In the study, the researchers observed that AT-121 showed the same level of pain relief as an opioid, but at a 100-times lower dose than morphine. At that dose, it also blunted the addictive effects of oxycodone, a commonly abused prescription drug.
[...] "Our data shows that targeting the nociceptin opioid receptor not only dialed down the addictive and other side-effects, it provided effective pain relief," Ko said. "The fact that this data was in nonhuman primates, a closely related species to humans, was also significant because it showed that compounds, such as AT-121, have the translational potential to be a viable opioid alternative or replacement for prescription opioids."
Journal Reference:
- Huiping Ding, Norikazu Kiguchi, Dennis Yasuda, Pankaj R. Daga, Willma E. Polgar, James J. Lu, Paul W. Czoty, Shiroh Kishioka, Nurulain T. Zaveri, Mei-Chuan Ko. A bifunctional nociceptin and mu opioid receptor agonist is analgesic without opioid side effects in nonhuman primates. Science Translational Medicine, 2018; 10 (456): eaar3483 DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aar3483
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(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday August 31 2018, @01:39AM (5 children)
There certainly is an aspect of pain that is in the mind, but it's not ALL in the mind. Pain can be damped down by various meditation techniques and hypnosis. The noxious awareness of the pain can be pushed out of the mind to an even greater extent, but even having done that, the body WILL still be reacting to the pain. You may feel only pressure but get the shakes and chills. You may still get inflammation. If it gets bad enough, you might suddenly black out.
Certainly, where possible the underlying cause of pain should be addressed. But having done so, healing will often go faster if the pain is also fully controlled, not just blocked out. Though there is a feedback loop, pain begets pain. The latter also ironically means that trying to hold out because you don't want to use a lot of pain killers can ultimately lead to more painkillers needed later.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday August 31 2018, @01:49AM (4 children)
Actually, pain *is* all in the mind, but that's not a very useful statement without a lot of additional qualifications. Every physical sensation only exists "in the mind". You can never know actual external reality, but only your mental construct of what it seems to be. So saying something is "all in the mind" isn't very useful unless you accompany it with lots of more definitive context.
That said, 'the mind" is reactive to the chemical environment within which it finds itself. It would almost be fair to say it's *only* reactive to the chemical environment within which it finds itself. And drugs are a part of that chemical environment.
And *that* said, different bodies react differently to chemical environments. For me, e.g., acetaminophen has essentially no effect on pain level. But aspirin and ibuprofen work fairly well (though far from perfectly). And what I generally wish they'd develop is a topical ointment to reduce inflamation at a specific site, say the toe or the knee. If the inflamation went away, so would the pain, and the inflamation isn't doing anything beneficial.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Friday August 31 2018, @06:52AM
And *that* said, different bodies react differently to chemical environments. For me, e.g., acetaminophen has essentially no effect on pain level.
Aha! Another one.
I too have the problem of acetoaminophen aka paracetamol having little to no analgesic effect on me, which was, quite literally, a pain when my dentist prescribed 400mg tablets of the stuff for post root canal treatment. I may as well have been using Smarties (M&Ms) for pain relief.
I once came across an academic paper that discussed drug metabolism in general and made the somewhat surprising statement that roughly 20% of people have some non-standard reaction to drugs, including over-sensitivity and under-sensitivity, and a paper in the same field talking about the biochemical reasons behind acetaminophen having no analgesic effect in some people. Unfortunately, I can't find it again to wave under the nose of various medical professionals who discount my experience. For me, taking acetaminophen makes me feel slightly nauseated, and has little to no analgesic effect. I am thankful for the invention of ibuprofen.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday August 31 2018, @10:41PM (2 children)
Provably not everything is in the mind. As I said, even will all conscious awareness of pain removed, there is an anatomical reaction. Our reflexes bypass the brain entirely. By the time the neural signals reach the brain, the muscles are already contracting.
Reactions to drugs definitely vary. I find acetaminophen only somewhat effective. Aspirin works much better for me.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday September 01 2018, @06:11PM (1 child)
No. You can't prove that "everything is in the mind" is false. That's one of the legitimate interpretations of quantum theory, though a rather useless one. But that's not what I was asserting anyway. What I was asserting is that all you can know is your mind. With the emphasis on know. Sensations that you experience do not directly map onto the external world. It's blatantly obvious at the 1-to-1 level, as you can't directly perceive radio waves, but it's even true for the subset of the universe that evokes sensations. See the rubber hand illusion. See theory of the perception of color. Et multitudinous cetera.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday September 02 2018, @04:04AM
Well let's put it this way, even with conscious perception of pain fully blocked, you may still later become conscious of the shakes and others you choose to believe actually exist may observe inflammation and report it to you. You might even observe it for yourself.
If you don't believe that reality is real, you should ask why you are disagreeing with a figment of your own imagination here.