Memory causes pain, drug controls it
Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 12:57 am
Anyone ever heard of this drug for phobias, Seromycin (D-Cycloserine)?
I'd give it a go if it's been on the market for a while.
I'm phobic of neuropathic pain for sure!
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http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.p ... s-pain.xml
Memory causes pain, drug controls it
EVANSTON, Ill., June 4 (UPI) -- U.S. medical scientists believe they have discovered why people often suffer from life-altering chronic pain long after an injury has healed.
Northwestern University Professor Vania Apkarian said the key source of chronic pain appears to be an old memory trace that essentially gets stuck in the brain's prefrontal cortex -- the site of emotion and learning -- where the brain seems to remember the injury as if it were fresh and can't forget it.
Apkarian, a professor of physiology and anesthesiology at Northwestern's Feinberg School of Medicine, has identified a drug that controls persistent nerve pain by targeting the prefrontal cortex.
The drug is D-Cycloserine, which has been used to treat phobic behavior. In studies, D-Cycloserine appeared to significantly diminish the emotional suffering from pain as well as the sensitivity of the formerly injured site. It also controlled nerve pain resulting from chemotherapy.
The drug -- sold by Eli Lilly under the brand name Seromycin -- has long-term benefits, with animals apparently pain free 30 days after the last dose of a 30-day regime.
The study is to be published this fall in the journal Pain.
Longer and more detailed article on same study...
http://www.biologynews.net/archives/200 ... _pain.html
I'd give it a go if it's been on the market for a while.
I'm phobic of neuropathic pain for sure!
============================================
http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.p ... s-pain.xml
Memory causes pain, drug controls it
EVANSTON, Ill., June 4 (UPI) -- U.S. medical scientists believe they have discovered why people often suffer from life-altering chronic pain long after an injury has healed.
Northwestern University Professor Vania Apkarian said the key source of chronic pain appears to be an old memory trace that essentially gets stuck in the brain's prefrontal cortex -- the site of emotion and learning -- where the brain seems to remember the injury as if it were fresh and can't forget it.
Apkarian, a professor of physiology and anesthesiology at Northwestern's Feinberg School of Medicine, has identified a drug that controls persistent nerve pain by targeting the prefrontal cortex.
The drug is D-Cycloserine, which has been used to treat phobic behavior. In studies, D-Cycloserine appeared to significantly diminish the emotional suffering from pain as well as the sensitivity of the formerly injured site. It also controlled nerve pain resulting from chemotherapy.
The drug -- sold by Eli Lilly under the brand name Seromycin -- has long-term benefits, with animals apparently pain free 30 days after the last dose of a 30-day regime.
The study is to be published this fall in the journal Pain.
Longer and more detailed article on same study...
http://www.biologynews.net/archives/200 ... _pain.html