Autophagy: An Emerging Target for Developing Effective Analgesics.

Inadequate treatment of acute and chronic pain causes depression, anxiety, sleep disturbances, and increased mortality. Abuse and overdose of opioids and the side effects associated with chronic use of NSAID illustrate the need for development of safer and effective pain medication. Working toward this end, an tool based on an emergent intelligence analytical platform that examines interactions between protein networks was used to identify molecular mechanisms involved in regulating the body's response to painful stimuli and drug treatments.