Turning up the heat on pain: TRPV1 receptors in pain and inflammation

Despite significant advancements in understanding the sensory nervous system, few innovative medicines for pain and inflammation have emerged. Many patients still rely on traditional analgesic and anti-inflammatory medications that originated from herbal remedies. New potential medicines based on capsaicin and its receptor draw from folk traditions while employing modern drug discovery techniques. The first formal documentation of capsaicin's pain-relieving properties dates back to 1850, although capsaicin-containing extracts had been used as folk medicines long before, similar to poppy or willow-bark extracts. It wasn't until 1878 that the selective action of capsaicin on the sensory nervous system was recognized. Chapter 1 features Janos Szolcsányi's review of early research, culminating in the pivotal studies by Nicholas Jansco and colleagues in the 1940s. Since then, capsaicin and related vanilloid compounds have been integral to investigations of analgesia and inflammation due to their ability to selectively activate a subset of sensory neurons, leading to sensations of pain and localized redness.