Nobel Laureate David Julius on the TNQ Distinguished Lectures within the Life Science-2024 at AIIMS in New Delhi on January 19, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma
The sensation of pain whereas common can be influenced by tradition. Though there’s progress in understanding new pathways on how pain is processed at a bio-chemical stage within the physique, the present class of painkillers that consist of opioids and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication (NSAID) will stay the mainstay of remedy for a very long time, mentioned David Julius, biochemist, molecular physiologist and co-recipient of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology.
Dr. Julius addressed scientists and college students at a chat, on Friday, as half of the annual TNQ Distinguished Lectures within the Life Sciences. In an almost two-hour discourse, the place he spoke on the subject, ‘How we sense pain’ and took a spread of questions from the viewers on the Jawaharlal Nehru Auditorium, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhii, Dr. Julius described his scientific journey as a pupil and biologist and the way he found a novel pathway and pain receptor – known as TRPV1 – that responds to capscacin, the compound in chilli peppers that offers the feeling of warmth. While capsaicin was already recognized to activate nerve cells inflicting pain sensations, how the chemical truly exerted this perform was an unsolved riddle. Through his investigations, he found a heat-sensing receptor that’s activated at temperatures perceived as “painful.”
Different varieties of pain
Understanding how the physique manages pain is an especially necessary subject of investigation as a result of whereas the pain-pathway system protects the physique by performing as a warning system towards tissue harm from modifications within the setting, equivalent to burns or accidents, it “can also flip” and grow to be hyper-sensitive inflicting persistent pain. “Lower back pain is a completely different experience from migraine pain and until we know what differentiates one from the other, it will be difficult to come up with new therapeutic options,” he added.
Chilli peppers and capsaicin, the diploma to that are they’re activated to induce sensations of burning, warmth and discomfort play a key function in Dr. Julius’s investigation.
Responding to a query on what folks in scorching climates relishing a fiery chilly may have to do with how the physique regulates temperature, Dr. Julius had this to say: on a scorching day in a subject, the core temperature within the physique would rise. Biting right into a chilli would set off sensations of warmth that will then sign to the physique to activate responses to decrease the ‘core temperature.’
“Mice that have been directly injected with capsaicin see their body temperatures rapidly falling. So this (eating spicy foods) is an efficient way to regulate body temperature. However behavioural adaptation is probably why different cultures have taken to it.” Birds and squirrels have the next core temperature than people and due to this fact have the next tolerance to peppers and scorching meals, he mentioned in a response to a question on evolutionary adaptation to warmth sensations.
Much of his analysis was attainable due to grants that had been generated from public funds. “The taxes that are paid should also be used to fund curiosity driven research – such as mine on peppers– and that’s the only way that we can move the science forward. Every country should have the equivalent of funding institutions such as the (US) National Institutes of Health,” mentioned Dr Julius.
The TNQ lecture sequence yearly invitations eminent scientists – a number of of them Nobel Laureates – within the life sciences for public talks, on their work, in India. Following his speak in Delhi, Dr Julius will lecture in Bengaluru and Mumbai subsequent week.
