Opioids—one of the most effective treatments for pain—come with a host of potential side effects: addiction, risk of overdose, and the development of tolerance that renders the drugs less effective over time. But in study published today (July 18) in Science Translational Medicine, researchers have used spinal injections of modified botulinum toxins to alleviate pain in mice, a strategy that may prove to be a safer alternative to opioids.
“Probably the most exciting thing is that you would be unlikely to see things like misuse” with this treatment, says Erin Young, a pain geneticist at the University of Connecticut who did not participate in the work. “Even if there is tolerance, it’s unlikely that this would be a drug of abuse,” she adds, because these conjugates are not administered systemically and because the receptor binding is not for activation, but for selectively entering the cells that are important for pain ...
