It’s not just for fine lines and wrinkles: Botox is showing promise as a treatment for chronic pain. Or, rather, the botulinum toxin that’s used commercially to erase signs of aging is also being studied as a potential alternative to opioid drugs.
A new paper in Science shows that a single dose of botulinum toxin, injected into the spinal cavity, prompted several weeks of pain relief from chronic and neuropathic pain — in mice. The researchers developed a new form of the neurotoxin to selectively silence key pain-causing neurons in the spinal cord. It worked for 23 days without killing any nerve cells and without causing any toxicities, the study found.
“At the moment, opioids are basically the gold standard to treat pain — but they’re at the root of an addiction epidemic in the U.S. right now,” said Maria Maiarù, the study’s lead author and a researcher in the department of cell and developmental biology at University College London. “What we provide is an opioid-free treatment for chronic pain.”
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