Department of Pharmacology and Department of Anesthesiology of the Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, 310058, China.
Key Laboratory of Neuropharmacology and Translational Medicine of Zhejiang Province, College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou, 310053, China.
Neurosci Bull. 2022 Apr;38(4):440-452. doi: 10.1007/s12264-022-00835-8. Epub 2022 Mar 5.
Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, actual or potential tissue damage. The processing of pain involves complicated modulation at the levels of the periphery, spinal cord, and brain. The pathogenesis of chronic pain is still not fully understood, which makes the clinical treatment challenging. Optogenetics, which combines optical and genetic technologies, can precisely intervene in the activity of specific groups of neurons and elements of the related circuits. Taking advantage of optogenetics, researchers have achieved a body of new findings that shed light on the cellular and circuit mechanisms of pain transmission, pain modulation, and chronic pain both in the periphery and the central nervous system. In this review, we summarize recent findings in pain research using optogenetic approaches and discuss their significance in understanding the pathogenesis of chronic pain.
疼痛是一种不愉快的感觉和情绪体验，与实际或潜在的组织损伤相关，或类似于与实际或潜在组织损伤相关的感觉和情绪体验。疼痛的处理涉及到外周、脊髓和大脑水平的复杂调节。慢性疼痛的发病机制尚不完全清楚，这使得临床治疗具有挑战性。光遗传学结合了光学和遗传学技术，可以精确地干预特定神经元群和相关回路的活动。利用光遗传学，研究人员已经取得了一系列新的发现，这些发现揭示了疼痛传递、疼痛调制以及外周和中枢神经系统慢性疼痛的细胞和回路机制。在这篇综述中，我们总结了使用光遗传学方法进行疼痛研究的最新发现，并讨论了它们在理解慢性疼痛发病机制中的意义。
