Ion channels involved in spontaneous pain

Author Info

Hiroki Toyoda

Corresponding Author

Hiroki Toyoda
Department of Oral Physiology, Osaka University Graduate School of Dentistry, Suita 565-0871, Japan

A B S T R A C T

Pain is a distressing feeling that is often induced by damaging stimuli. The nerve injuries cause various molecular changes in nociceptive primary afferent neurons that cause spontaneous pain. Furthermore, the nerve trunk injury induces ectopic discharge, resulting in spontaneous pain. To date, accumulating evidence suggests that ion channels which are responsible for neuronal excitability play key roles in generation of spontaneous pain. It is believed that voltage-gated Na+ channels (VGSCs) and Ca2+ channels (VGCCs) are the primary membrane proteins for causing spontaneous pain. However, it has been evident that various ion channels including transient receptor potential (TRP) channels, hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide–gated (HCN) channels and acid-sensing ion channels (ASICs) are associated with generation of spontaneous pain. In the present review, I will describe the current knowledge on ion channels related to spontaneous pain

Article Info

Article Type

Review Article

Publication history

Received: Mon 06, Aug 2018
Accepted: Wed 22, Aug 2018
Published: Wed 05, Sep 2018

Copyright

© 2023 Hiroki Toyoda. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Hosting by Science Repository.
DOI: 10.31487/j.NNB.2018.02.001