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We have another preprint to share, this time looking at molecular and functional correlates of opioid use disorder (OUD) in the human DRG 📝 #PainResearch www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Sensory ganglia recovered from organ donors with OUD showed disrupted glial & immune signalling across omics, with electrophysiology suggesting the nociceptors from these donors are functionally sensitized 🧬🔬

Opioid withdrawal is known to be painful, and documented reports of "joint pain" and "rheumatism" during withdrawal date back ~500 years. We speculate that a peripheral inflammatory state contributes to this.

Previous work has also show changes in neuroimmune signalling in the CNS of mice and humans with chronic opioid use... we are extending this to the human PNS

Also, unlike mice, human SGCs express OPRK1. This has been reported before by the Iadarola Lab, which we were able to validate across a few different methods. It probably matters.