Oxytocin (Not Oxycontin!) Vital For Control Of Nerve Pain

Today's fascinating post from sciencedaily.com (see link below) talks about another element of our nervous system essential for reducing pain responses naturally and that is Oxytocin. Oxytocin is a peptide that is synthesised in the hypothalamus (The hypothalamus is in the brain and is responsible for certain metabolic processes and other activities of the autonomic nervous system.) What it does when it's released into the blood and spinal cord, is reduce the severity of pain signals to a bearable degree, otherwise they would be too extreme and traumatic and possibly cause a shut-down of all systems (during childbirth for instance). Oxytocin release is controlled by 30 neurons that are situated in the hypothalamus and are essential messengers in the neurological system. Having discovered this nerve control centre (so to speak) scientists will be able to target it to release more oxytocin and diminish the negative effects of certain treatments. It is true, the more this sort of information is released, the more confused we could become (through sheer information overload) but on the other hand, you get the feeling that we are only at the beginning of astounding new discoveries as to how our nervous system works and as long as we can get the gist of what's being discovered as we go along, we can trust the scientists to take their discoveries to logical and beneficial conclusions and eventually relieve nerve pain much easier. Oxytocin is also known as the 'love hormone' but you'll need to Google why!

30 small neurons join forces against pain 
Date: March 3, 2016 Source: CNRS

Oxytocin plays a crucial role in modulating the response to pain, but until now the process leading to its release was unknown. An international team[1], coordinated by Alexandre Charlet, at the CNRS Institut des Neurosciences Cellulaires et Intégratives in Strasbourg (France) and Valery Grinevich from the DKFZ[2] in Germany, has just identified a new pain control center situated in the hypothalamus. It comprises some thirty neurons that are wholly responsible for coordinating the release of oxytocin into the blood and spinal cord, thus reducing painful sensations. These findings, which open new perspectives in the treatment of pathological pain, are detailed in an article published on 3 March 2016 in Neuron.

That hammer blow on the fingers of the weekend DIY enthusiast must have hurt. But it would have been worse if oxytocin, a peptide synthesized by a region in the brain called the hypothalamus, had not intervened very rapidly in the cerebral processes modulating the pain response. From contractions of the uterus during delivery to the release of breast milk after birth, and not forgetting its involvement in regulating social interactions, anxiety or pain, oxytocin is an essential, but currently somewhat mysterious, messenger. Indeed, the mechanisms which lead to its dissemination had never previously been deciphered.

An international team of scientists coordinated by Alexandre Charlet at the CNRS Institut des Neurosciences Cellulaires et Intégratives (France) and Valery Grinevich at DKFZ (Germany) focused on the process underlying oxytocin release when pain is perceived. It discovered that the control center in the brain that coordinates the release of oxytocin only comprises some thirty neurons in the hypothalamus.

During acute pain or inflammatory sensitization (burns, pinching, cuts, etc.), information is transmitted via the peripheral nerves[3] to neurons in the spinal cord. These interpret the intensity of the message and encode it accordingly. The information is then sent to other neurons, which include the small population of 30 small cells in the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus that has been identified by Alexandre Charlet's team. These in return activate a family of large, magnocellular neurons in another region of the hypothalamus, which release oxytocin into the bloodstream. The target is the peripheral neurons that continue to send the message responsible for pain to the brain. Oxytocin has "anesthetized" them and thus reduced the pain.

However, the thirty controlling neurons do not stop there. In parallel, projections from these cells, or axons, which are up to a meter long in humans, reach the deepest of the ten layers of the spinal cord (where the intensity of the sensory message is encoded) and release oxytocin. Thus via two simultaneous pathways, they diminish retransmission of the pain signal to the brain.

Work by the team has thus explained how different populations of oxytocin neurons are coordinated in order to control interpretation of the "pain" message by the nervous system. Discovery of this analgesic control center is promising in the context of treating pathological pain. Targeting this handful of neurons could indeed diminish the adverse effects of potential therapies. At present, the team is continuing to study them, this time in order to discover their involvement in oxytocin release that enables lactation and certain sexual behaviors.

[1] The team included scientists from the CNRS, Inserm, Université de Strasbourg, DKFZ and other institutions in Germany, Switzerland, China, Italy and the US.

[2] Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum (German Cancer Research Center).

[3] The peripheral nerves link different organs to the central nervous system, made up of the brain and spinal cord.

Story Source:

The above post is reprinted from materials provided by CNRS. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Journal Reference:
Marina Eliava, Meggane Melchior, H. Sophie Knobloch-Bollmann, Jérôme Wahis, Miriam da Silva Gouveia, Yan Tang, Alexandru Cristian Ciobanu, Rodrigo Triana del Rio, Lena C. Roth, Ferdinand Althammer, Virginie Chavant, Yannick Goumon, Tim Gruber, Nathalie Petit-Demoulière, Marta Busnelli, Bice Chini, Linette L. Tan, Mariela Mitre, Robert C. Froemke, Moses V. Chao, Günter Giese, Rolf Sprengel, Rohini Kuner, Pierrick Poisbeau, Peter H. Seeburg, Ron Stoop, Alexandre Charlet, Valery Grinevich. A New Population of Parvocellular Oxytocin Neurons Controlling Magnocellular Neuron Activity and Inflammatory Pain Processing. Neuron, 2016; DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2016.01.041

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CNRS. "30 small neurons join forces against pain." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 3 March 2016. .

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160303133628.htm