Department of Neural and Pain Sciences, University of Maryland Dental School, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Adv Exp Med Biol. 2011;704:615-36. doi: 10.1007/978-94-007-0265-3_33.
It is crucial for a living organism to recognize and discern potentially harmful noxious stimuli from innocuous stimuli to avoid hazards in the environment. However, unnecessary or exaggerated nociception is at best unpleasant and often compromises the quality of life. In order to lessen the intensity of nociception or eliminate the pathological pain, it is important to understand the nature of nociception and the mechanisms of hyperalgesia or allodynia. Transient receptor potential (TRP) channels play central roles in nociception under physiological and pathological conditions including inflammation and neuropathy. In this chapter, we will highlight the enormous progress in understanding the role of TRP channels in nociception. We will mainly focus on two TRP channels (TRPV1 and TRPA1) that have been particularly implicated in transducing signals associated with pain sensation, and briefly discuss the role of TRPM8, TRPV3 and TRPV4. We will stress debatable issues that needed to be resolved and provide perspectives for the future studies.
对于生物体来说，识别和区分潜在的有害刺激与无害刺激以避免环境中的危险是至关重要的。然而，不必要或过度的痛觉是令人不愉快的，而且常常会影响生活质量。为了减轻痛觉的强度或消除病理性疼痛，了解痛觉的本质和痛觉过敏或感觉异常的机制是很重要的。瞬时受体电位（TRP）通道在包括炎症和神经病变在内的生理和病理条件下的痛觉中起着核心作用。在这一章中，我们将重点介绍在理解 TRP 通道在痛觉中的作用方面所取得的巨大进展。我们将主要关注两个特别涉及与疼痛感觉相关信号转导的 TRP 通道（TRPV1 和 TRPA1），并简要讨论 TRPM8、TRPV3 和 TRPV4 的作用。我们将强调需要解决的有争议的问题，并为未来的研究提供观点。
