In a new study, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have identified a possible drug candidate that suppresses pain and itch in animal models. Their new approach also reduces the potential for drug abuse and avoids the most common side effects—sedation and anxiety—of drugs designed to target the nervous system’s kappa opioid receptors (KORs).
“The most significant aspect of the study is that we can preserve itch and pain treatment qualities in a KOR agonist that we developed—triazole 1.1—while avoiding the euphoria associated with narcotic opioids and the dysphoria associated with some other selective KOR agonists,” said TSRI Professor Laura Bohn, senior author of the new study.
