Medical researchers at the University of Texas say dopamine – the mechanism in your brain responsible for movement, memory and reward – could provide the key to unlocking the problem of chronic pain.

Dopamine is vital for several different brain functions, but its contributions to the problem of chronic pain are not well known. To better understand dopamine’s role in chronic pain transmission, researchers began studying its effect in mice. Researchers noted that removing a specific collection of neurons -known as A11 – helped diminish the perception of chronic pain. The cluster of A11 neurons contained high levels of dopamine.

“These findings demonstrate a novel role for how dopamine contributes to maintaining chronic pain states,” said associate professor Dr. Ted Price.

How it Works

When a person gets injured, neurons inside the body send pain signals to the brain. In someone with chronic pain, these neurons send pain signals to the brain even when an injury isn’t present. A physical medicine pain specialist’s job is to determine what is causing these neurons to fire, and how to stop them from incorrectly firing.

The A11 cluster might be causing some of these neurons to fire. In fact, when removed, mice were still able to feel acute pain (an actual physical injury), but they exhibited a lesser response to chronic pain.

“We used a toxin that affected A11 neurons, and that’s when we found that acute pain signals were still normal, but chronic pain was absent,” said Dr. Price. “This may open up new opportunities to target medicines that could reverse chronic pain,” said Dr. Price.

Dr. Price and colleagues want to continue studying dopamine receptors in relation to chronic pain perception.

“In future studies, we would like to gain a better understanding of how stress interacts with A11. And we’d like to know more about the interaction between molecular mechanisms that promote chronic pain and dopamine.”