Analgesics - From Chemistry and Pharmacology to Clinical Appln.

Pain has been a human problem since the beginning of time but the last decade has seen an explosion of information about the transmitters, receptors and channels involved in the transmission and modulation of noxious messages generated in peripheral tissues. This has lead to the identification of a number of potential new targets for analgesic therapy. We now have more experimental drugs available, which allows us to study the roles of transmitters and receptors in physiological events. There are now numerous animal models for clinical pain states such as inflammation and neuropathies, and these models have shown that several transmitter systems which have minor actions in acute pains can play important roles in more persistent pains.