PARIS, Mar. 23 (Benin News) –
A new study, published in the journal “Brain”, shows for the first time that neurons in the spinal cord process pain signals differently in women and men. This discovery might lead to more effective and personalized treatments for chronic pain, which are sorely needed, especially in light of the opioid epidemic.
Although it has long been known that females and males experience pain differently, most pain research uses male rodents. The new study is unique in that it used spinal cord tissue from male and female rats and humans, generously donated by deceased people and their families.
By examining spinal cord tissue in the laboratory, researchers were able to show that a neuronal growth factor called BDNF plays an important role in amplifying pain signaling in the spinal cord in humans and male rats. , but not in humans or female rats. When the female rats had their ovaries removed, the difference disappeared, indicating a hormonal link.
“Developing new pain medications requires a detailed understanding of how pain is processed on a biological level,” says Annemarie Dedek, PhD, lead study author and now an industrial researcher funded by MITACS and Eli Lilly at the at Carleton University and the Ottawa Hospital in Canada. This new discovery lays the foundation for the development of new treatments to help people with chronic pain.
According to the authors, this is the first time that a sex-related difference in pain signaling in human spinal cord tissue has been identified, and future studies are needed to understand how this biological difference may contribute to the differences in pain sensation between men and women.
This discovery was made possible by a unique collaboration between the research laboratories of Dr. Mike Hildebrand, associate professor at Carleton University and affiliated researcher at The Ottawa Hospital; Eve Tsai, neurosurgeon and Suruchi Bhargava Chair in Spinal Cord and Brain Regeneration Research at The Ottawa Hospital and Associate Professor at the University’s Brain and Mind Research Institute from Ottawa; Yves De Koninck, director of the CERVO Brain Research Center at Laval University; and Jian Xu, associate researcher at Yale University (USA).
