The research, based on the premise that local anaesthetics work by blocking nerve signals in a particular area of the body, is looking at ways to identify how future generations of anaesthetic-type drugs might target different pain centres.
The research team at the Australian National University in Canberra has developed computer modelling to reveal how drugs enter nerve cells. Anaesthetic drugs work by blocking proteins in the membrane of a nerve cell, preventing the transmission of an electrical signal that translates as pain … hence no feeling where the drug has been injected. These proteins vary across the body, so the research effort targets those differences with a view to combating pain without affecting key areas like the brain or heart, which could be fatal.
Read more about this research on the Australian edition of ehospice and the National University’s website, or access the paper on the PLOS Computational Biology website.
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