Johns Hopkins Scientists Find A Source Of Nonallergic Itch

[HuckleB]

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/174686.php

"Scratching below the surface of a troublesome sensation that's equal parts tingle-tickle-prickle, sensory scientists from Johns Hopkins have discovered in mice a molecular basis for nonallergic itch.

Using the itch-inducing compound chloroquine, an antimalarial drug, the team identified that a family of proteins called Mrgprs, found only in a rare subset of nerve cells, functions as itch receptors. A report on the research appears Dec. 24 in Cell.

Itch research - and the sweet relief it may one day afford - has remained at a relative crawl, lagging well behind pain research, says Xinzhong Dong, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Most studies so far have focused on allergy-related itch, a reaction involving an itch mediator known as histamine and accounting for about one-third of all itch. Allergic itch often responds to antihistamines, but most kinds of itch do not, including the kind that's induced by chloroquine.

"The majority of itch is not associated with histamine and therefore antihistamines won't work," Dong says. "We're not saying that our discovery solves all other histamine-independent itch, but this research makes significant strides in getting to the root of a sensation that's poorly understood and about which there's heated debate."

..."


--------------------------------------------


What we really are some scratch N sniff nerves!