Yale scientists visualize pain’s pathway

The lab of Stephen Waxman, Bridget M. Flaherty Professor of Neurology and of neuroscience, has identified the key role of sodium channels arrayed on nerve cells in experience of pain. 

In a new paper published in Science Advances, the Yale team led by postdoctoral associate Liz Akin and senior research scientist Sulayman Dib-Hajj was able to visualize at the level of a single molecule how sodium channels and electrical impulses they generate are distributed, often at great distances, along nerve cells. The research advances the lab’s efforts to lay the groundwork for a new generation of non-addictive pain killers.