A study led by researchers at ibs.GRANADA reveals the importance of communication between the immune system and neurons in postoperative pain.
The results of this research could lead to the development of new analgesics for the treatment of pain after surgery.
A research project led by scientists from the Granada Biosanitary Research Institute (ibs.GRANADA) and from different areas of the University of Granada (Department of Pharmacology, Institute of Neurosciences, Biomedical Research Center), in collaboration with the University of Barcelona, has been able to confirm the decisive role played by communication between the first cells of the immune system that reach the damaged tissue for wound repair (neutrophils) and the sensory neurons responsible for pain transmission (nociceptors) in the acute discomfort that occurs after a surgical intervention.
Pain that occurs within a few hours of surgery (in the immediate postoperative period) is often very intense, and the drugs used to treat it are often insufficient to adequately control it, which represents a significant clinical problem.
The results of this study, recently published by the journal Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy, one of the most important in the field of experimental pharmacology, opens new avenues of exploration for the development of analgesic treatments aimed at relieving postoperative pain.
Fundamental role of neutrophils
The process of surgical wound repair begins immediately after the injury. The cells that make up a tissue communicate with each other through chemical signals that
They are altered when the brain is damaged, as occurs after surgery. These chemical changes are important because they can stimulate a type of sensory neurons known as nociceptors, which are responsible for transmitting pain.
One of the key steps in this process is the arrival of white blood cells to the wound, which contribute to forming an inflammatory chemical environment. There are many types of white blood cells, and not all of them reach the damaged tissue at the same time. The first to do so are neutrophils, which within a few hours of the injury are already massively concentrated in the wound area.
The study's authors highlight the importance of neutrophils in postoperative pain, something that had previously gone unnoticed. Their research has allowed them to discover that these cells maintain very close communication with nociceptors, promoting pain transmission. In fact, their results suggest that neutrophils are absolutely essential for the generation of postoperative pain.
An important advance in understanding and controlling pain better
The findings of this study represent an important step in understanding how postoperative pain occurs, and perhaps also other types of pain that occur with inflammation. As two of the authors of this work, Enrique J. Cobos del Moral and Rafael González Cano, researchers in the group, point out MP09-Neuropharmacology of Pain From the IBS. GRANADA and the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Granada, "the study of the factors released by neutrophils could be key to achieving better pain control in many pathological circumstances."
However, those responsible for the study warn that many questions remain, such as determining exactly which chemical agents are released by these immune system cells that promote painful transmission.
