PainRelief.com Interview with:
Frank Porreca, PhD
Associate Department Head, Pharmacology
Member of the Graduate Faculty
Professor, Anesthesiology
Professor, Cancer Biology – GIDP
Professor, Neuroscience – GIDP
Professor, Pharmacology
College of Medicine
University of Arizona

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: Our research concerns the mechanisms that initiate perception of pain rather than the experience of pain itself. 

Pain commonly results from activation of sensory fibers called nociceptors.  Nociceptors normally are activated by high intensity stimuli (e.g., like touching a hot stove) but not by low intensity stimuli (like touch itself). But, when there is an injury like a mild inflammation such as a sunburn, then light touch like the rubbing of your shirt on your sunburned neck can produce activation of nociceptors and the perception of pain.  This indicates that the thresholds for activation of the nociceptors has decreased so that normally innocuous stimuli can now result in pain.  The mechanisms by which the thresholds for activation of nociceptors are decreased are important as this can promote instances of pain from normally nonpainful stimuli, movement of joints, migraine, irritable bowel syndrome, temporomandibular disorder etc…