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Chronic pain could be eased by uncoupling the sensory and emotional experiences

Researchers identify the neurons involved in the emotional distress associated with pain, and design a genetic approach that could soothe suffering without opioid drugs.
By
  1. Nicolas Massaly

    1. Nicolas Massaly is in the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.

  2. Monique L. Smith

    1. Monique L. Smith is in the Department of Neurobiology, School of Biological Sciences, and the Department of Neurosciences, School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093 USA.

Opioid drugs are unmatched in their efficacy in managing pain. However, their clinical use is severely constrained by serious side effects: individuals can develop tolerance (requiring ever-higher doses), physical dependence, constipation, opioid-use disorder and life-threatening respiratory depression. To treat pain more safely, substantial efforts have been made to modify the chemical structures of opioids and discover druggable targets. However, pain management has only slightly improved in the past few decades, and great challenges remain in easing the suffering caused by chronic pain. Writing in Nature, Oswell et al.1 investigate alternative paths to alleviate the negative emotional experience of pain while keeping sensory processing intact.

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Nature 649, 832-833 (2026)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-03987-5

References

  1. Oswell, C. S. et al. Nature 649, 938–947 (2026).

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  3. Armbruster, B. N., Li, X., Pausch, M. H., Herlitze, S. & Roth, B. L. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 104, 5163–5168 (2007).

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Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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