Makoto Tsunozaki, Richard C Lennertz, D. Vilceanu
Jul 1, 2013
Citations
0
Influential Citations
53
Citations
Journal
The Journal of Physiology
Abstract
• Extracts from the toothache tree (Zanthoxylum) are used to treat inflammatory pain, such as toothache and arthritis. • Hydroxy‐α‐sanshool (sanshool) is a major alkylamide in extracts from Zanthoxylum plants. • Sanshool treatment in mice caused a selective attenuation of mechanical sensitivity under naïve and inflammatory conditions • Sanshool inhibits Aδ mechanonociceptors that mediate both sharp acute pain and inflammatory pain, and inhibits the activity of multiple voltage‐gated sodium channel subtypes, among which Nav1.7 is the most strongly affected. • Our data implicate Nav1.7 as a key mediator of inflammatory mechanical pain in ‘fast pain’ mechanosensory neurons.