Hokkaido University Pain exacerbates neurological illness-University Journal Online

　Professor Masaaki Murakami of Hokkaido University and colleagues used mice that developed a neurological disorder called multiple sclerosis disease (EAE) and clarified that pain is the cause of exacerbation of the disease's symptoms.Until now, pain has only been recognized as a by-product of the onset of the disease, and its direct relationship to the symptoms and progression of the disease has not been investigated, but the study may vice versa. I understand.

　Professor Murakami and his colleagues have found in experiments using mice that an immune disease called multiple sclerosis (EAE) is exacerbated by muscle stimulation.This is because immune cells collect in the blood vessels of the lumbar spinal cord.And in this study, we investigated how pain affects the symptoms of the disease.First, the disease is caused by transplanting the cells that cause EAE into healthy mice.It was found that the symptoms improved when a sedative was given to this to relieve the pain.On the other hand, in the pained mice, they improved and recurred repeatedly.It is known that the course of EAE in humans also repeats recurrence, but this experiment suggested that the cause of recurrence was pain.

　This study reveals a different fact from the conventional wisdom that pain induces illness.In the future, it is expected that the suppression of nerve information transmission will relieve pain, prevent the recurrence of the disease, and lead to the development of new treatment methods.In the future, we will investigate whether there are other illnesses that are caused by pain or neural networks.

Source:[Hokkaido University] Demonstrating that pain exacerbates neurological illness (PDF)