Publications by authors named "Elizabeth R Mooney"
: Sugar is routinely used to comfort neonates undergoing painful procedures, and animal studies have shown that sucrose increases the time to withdrawal from painful stimuli. However, there are no published studies examining the effects of sweet substances on heat pain thresholds and percept in adult humans. : Healthy adult volunteers (n=27, aged 18-48 years) were recruited to a controlled, double-blind, randomised, cross-over study to characterise the effect of tasting solutions of equivalent sweetness (10% sucrose and 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNociception - the ability to detect painful stimuli - is an invaluable sense that warns against present or imminent damage. In patients with chronic pain, however, this warning signal persists in the absence of any genuine threat and affects all aspects of everyday life. Neuropathic pain, a form of chronic pain caused by damage to sensory nerves themselves, is dishearteningly refractory to drugs that may work in other types of pain and is a major unmet medical need begging for novel analgesics.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPrevious studies have shown that hyperpolarisation-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated (HCN)-2 ion channels regulate the firing frequency of nociceptive sensory neurons and thus play a central role in both inflammatory and neuropathic pain conditions. Here we use ivabradine, a clinically approved anti-anginal agent that blocks all HCN channel isoforms approximately equally, to investigate the effect on inflammatory and neuropathic pain of HCN ion channel block. We show that ivabradine does not have major off-target effects on a sample group of Na, Ca, and K ion channels, and that it is peripherally restricted because it is a substrate for the P-glycoprotein (PgP) multidrug transporter that is expressed in the blood-brain barrier.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- The study focuses on C-terminal truncated (ΔC) variants of the P2X7 receptor and their potential role in receptor response diversity in specific mouse models.
- Techniques like RT-PCR and Western blot were used to assess ΔC variant expression in wild-type and Pfizer KO mice, revealing the presence of these variants in various tissues.
- Findings suggest that while ΔC variants are expressed in Pfizer KO mice, they have impaired function and can negatively affect P2X7 receptor activity when co-expressed.