Gene therapy shows promise in treating neuropathy from spinal cord injuries

An international team of researchers, led by scientists at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, report that a gene therapy that inhibits targeted nerve cell signaling effectively reduced neuropathic pain with no detectable side effects in mice with spinal cord or peripheral nerve injuries.
The findings, published in the May 5, 2022 online issue of Molecular Therapy, represent a potential new treatment approach for a condition that may affect more than half of patients who suffer spinal cord injuries. Neuropathy involves damage or dysfunction in nerves elsewhere in the body, typically resulting in chronic or debilitating numbness, tingling, muscle weakness and pain.
There are no singularly effective remedies for neuropathy. Pharmaceutical therapies, for example, often require complex, continuous delivery of drugs and are associated with undesirable side effects, such as sedation and motor weakness. Opioids can be effective, but can also lead to increased tolerance and risk of misuse or abuse.
Because physicians and researchers are able to pinpoint the precise location of a spinal cord injury and origin of neuropathic pain, there has been much effort to develop treatments that selectively target impaired or damaged neurons in the affected spinal segments.
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