Scientists have just taken a step closer to developing a high-strength painkiller that is not as addictive as opioids. Opioids are sometimes prescribed to patients for use as pain relief in the short term. But they come with serious side effects and risks, including addictions, and subsequently death from overdose, as highlighted in the hit Netflix series Painkiller. Overdoses involving opioids—including prescription opioids, heroin, and synthetic opioids like fentanyl—killed more than 80,000 people in the U.S. in 2021, and nearly 88 percent of those deaths involved synthetic opioids. For this reason, scientists are searching for effective, less addictive, alternatives to treat pain. New research published in the journal Neuron from the University of Chicago, suggests scientists may have taken a step towards finding one. While they have not developed any new drugs, they are looking into new pathways of administering drugs to lessen the risk of addiction seen with opioids. In mice, they identified an alternative signaling pathway in the brain that alleviates pain. This was the case even in animals that have a tolerance to the powerful drugs. When taken through this pathway, pain relief did not result in withdrawals. It also did not trigger reward systems in the brain—opioids can cause this system to be flooded with an excess of dopamine, which the brain associated with the addictive substance. This means that there is a smaller risk of addiction through this pathway. Read more...
No comments:
Post a Comment