Will Optogenetics Be Used To Treat Chronic Pain Patients?

Abstract

Chronic pain affects a third of the population and current treatments produce limited relief and severe side effects. An alternative strategy to decrease pain would be to directly modulate somatosensory pathways using optogenetics. Optogenetics involves the use of genetically encoded and optically active proteins, namely opsins, to control neuronal circuits. In preclinical animal models, optical silencing of peripheral nociceptors has been shown to alleviate both inflammatory and neuropathic pain. An opsin-based gene therapy to treat chronic pain patients is not ready yet, but encouraging advances have been made in optical and viral technology. In view of the increasing burden of chronic pain in our aging society, innovative analgesic approaches based on optogenetics are definitely worth exploring.

KEYWORDS:

• analgesia
• chronic pain
• gene therapy
• opsin
• optogenetics
• phototherapy
• somatosensory system
• virus

Financial & competing interests disclosure

H Beaudry was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Fonds de Recherche du Québec- Santé and The Canadian Arthritis Society. I Daou received a studentship from Fonds de Recherche du Québec- Santé. A Ribeiro-Da-Silva was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Quebec Pain Research Network and the Louise and Alan Edwards Foundation, and P Séguéla was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Louise and Alan Edwards Foundation and the Quebec Pain Research Network. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

H Beaudry was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Fonds de Recherche du Québec- Santé and The Canadian Arthritis Society. I Daou received a studentship from Fonds de Recherche du Québec-Santé. A Ribeiro-Da-Silva was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Quebec Pain Research Network and the Louise and Alan Edwards Foundation, and P Séguéla was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Louise and Alan Edwards Foundation and the Quebec Pain Research Network. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed. No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript