Can Neuropathic Pain Be Prevented?

Neuropathic pain usually does not occur in childhood, but it can develop in adolescents and adults long after peripheral-nerve injury. To examine this phenomenon, two research groups recently looked at pain mechanisms in animals.

In adults, nerve injury leads to increased proinflammatory proteins in the spinal cord (e.g., interleukin-10) that sensitize nociceptors to induce prolonged pain, hypersensitivity, and allodynia. McKelvey and colleagues found that infant rodents had instead an anti-inflammatory response to nerve injury. As nerve-injured infants got older, a proinflammatory response occurred, along with the emergence of hyperactivity of dorsal-horn neurons and neuropathic pain.

Ferrari and colleagues studied pain pathways in adult rod…