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Journal ArticleDOI

Impaired Nociception and Pain Sensation in Mice Lacking the Capsaicin Receptor

TLDR
Sensory neurons from mice lacking VR1 are severely deficient in their responses to each of these noxious stimuli and are impaired in the detection of painful heat, and showed little thermal hypersensitivity in the setting of inflammation.
Abstract
The capsaicin (vanilloid) receptor VR1 is a cation channel expressed by primary sensory neurons of the "pain" pathway. Heterologously expressed VR1 can be activated by vanilloid compounds, protons, or heat (>43 degrees C), but whether this channel contributes to chemical or thermal sensitivity in vivo is not known. Here, we demonstrate that sensory neurons from mice lacking VR1 are severely deficient in their responses to each of these noxious stimuli. VR1-/- mice showed normal responses to noxious mechanical stimuli but exhibited no vanilloid-evoked pain behavior, were impaired in the detection of painful heat, and showed little thermal hypersensitivity in the setting of inflammation. Thus, VR1 is essential for selective modalities of pain sensation and for tissue injury-induced thermal hyperalgesia.

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Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI

Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms of Pain

TL;DR: Genetic, electrophysiological, and pharmacological studies are elucidating the molecular mechanisms that underlie detection, coding, and modulation of noxious stimuli that generate pain.
Journal ArticleDOI

Descending control of pain.

TL;DR: The present review focuses on the organisation of descending pathways and their pathophysiological significance, the role of individual transmitters and specific receptor types in the modulation and expression of mechanisms of descending inhibition and facilitation and the advantages and limitations of established and innovative analgesic strategies which act by manipulation of descending controls.
Journal ArticleDOI

TRP channels as cellular sensors

TL;DR: TRP channels are the vanguard of the authors' sensory systems, responding to temperature, touch, pain, osmolarity, pheromones, taste and other stimuli, but their role is much broader than classical sensory transduction.
Journal ArticleDOI

Molecular mechanisms of nociception

TL;DR: Efforts to determine how primary sensory neurons detect pain-producing stimuli of a thermal, mechanical or chemical nature have revealed new signalling mechanisms and brought us closer to understanding the molecular events that facilitate transitions from acute to persistent pain.
Journal ArticleDOI

Identification of a cold receptor reveals a general role for TRP channels in thermosensation

TL;DR: These findings, together with the previous identification of the heat-sensitive channels VR1 and VRL-1, demonstrate that TRP channels detect temperatures over a wide range and are the principal sensors of thermal stimuli in the mammalian peripheral nervous system.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

Null mutation of Dlx-2 results in abnormal morphogenesis of proximal first and second branchial arch derivatives and abnormal differentiation in the forebrain.

TL;DR: Results show that Dlx-2 controls development of the branchial arches and the forebrain and suggests its role in craniofacial evolution, and shows that the affected skull bones from the first arch have undergone a transformation into structures similar to those found in reptiles.
Book ChapterDOI

Functional properties of spinal visceral afferents supplying abdominal and pelvic organs, with special emphasis on visceral nociception

TL;DR: The functional and the morphological properties of the spinal visceral afferent neurons, supplying the abdominal and pelvic organs, are discussed, including special emphasis has been placed on the visceral nociception and pain.
Journal ArticleDOI

Receptive Properties of Mouse Sensory Neurons Innervating Hairy Skin

TL;DR: All types of cutaneous afferent fibers are already committed to their phenotype 2 wk after birth but undergo some maturation over the following weeks, which has great potential for the study of transgenic mice with targeted mutations of genes that code factors that are involved in the specification of sensory neuron phenotypes.
Journal ArticleDOI

Ion channels of nociception

TL;DR: This review discusses recent results in the converging fields of nociception and ion channel biology and focuses on (a) the capsaicin receptor and its possible role in thermosensation, (b) ATP-gated channels, (c) proton-gator channels, and (d) nocICEptor-specific Na+ channels.
Journal ArticleDOI

Protons: small stimulants of capsaicin-sensitive sensory nerves

TL;DR: The data reviewed in this article suggest that protons should no longer be considered simply as an unwanted by-product of anaerobic respiration that results from either an accumulation of inflammatory cells or a reduced oxygenated blood supply during ischaemia, but as a mediator that elicits a protective response with reflex cardiovascular and respiratory responses, and with the local release of sensory neuropeptides.
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