Naked Mole Rats Don’t Feel Pain, Can Help People
The tiny naked mole rat is a small, nasty looking mammal, but they are a subject of a study that might help millions of people in the future. Why? Because they are insensitive to pain.
It has been discovered that these naked mole rats are insensitive to long-lasting, achy pain. This is because they do not produce a chemical called Substance P that is present in mammals and is the responsible of sending pain signal to the central nervous system.
Professors Thomas Park and Gary Lewin in the experiment were also capable of restoring the production of Substance P with a herpes cold sore virus – though only in one foot.
“They’d pull their foot back and lick it,” in response to the stimulus, said Park.
This knowledge could help patients who deal with painful diseases. “This is important specifically to the long-term, secondary-order inflammatory pain. It’s the pain that can last for hours or days when you pull a muscle or have a surgical procedure,” he said.
“We’re learning which nerve fibres are important for which kinds of pain, so we’ll be able to develop new strategies and targets,”
