Summary: MECHANISMS
DRUG DISCOVERY
TODAY
DISEASE
Shared mechanisms between chronic
pain and neurodegenerative disease
A. Vania Apkarian1,*, Joachim Scholz2
1
Department of Physiology, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, 303 E Chicago Ave, Chicago III, IL, USA
2
Neural Plasticity Research Group, Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, 149 13th Street,
Room 4309, Charlestown, MA, USA
Accumulating evidence indicates that chronic pain
provokes morphological changes in the central nervous
system. Animal models of neuropathic pain have
revealed that degeneration of inhibitory interneurons
in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord contributes to
persistent pain after peripheral nerve injury. Brain
imaging in patients with chronic pain demonstrates a
decrease in neocortical gray matter and in brain meta-

Source: Apkarian, A. Vania - Department of Physiology, Northwestern University

Collections: Biology and Medicine