Bad news for people who hate good news! (Hederagenin and NPFFR1)

Chronic pain is a big inspiration in most people's lives, in fact according to our nervous system pain is meant to be our biggest motivation. Having a dad with complex regional pain disorder, and a partner who's made mainly of refurbished parts and whatever metal fragments they couldn't pull from him- This is the crowd I've chosen to spend my time with I suppose. 

  The neurological system is the last frontier of science, it's been said several times by several of the greats. Consider you have a railway, and that railway is made of a billion different tracks- the different tracks run different trains, the trains can only pick up certain types of cargo and some of them only a certain amount of cargo. If a train crashes it offsets the whole system, if a track or several tracks are damaged in this crash suddenly everything is behind schedule and nothing is working like it should. The metro station compensates by sending out more trains, maybe by building new tracks, maybe building a temporary track, maybe cargo is offloaded onto a different train but that train doesn't follow the track to the appropriate stop. Being a train conductor is fun when you have one train going along a straight track that is well maintained but as more tracks and trains are put in the play things get confusing fast. This is why neurologists are the most interesting professionals, not because neurology is interesting (it is) but because knowing the awful terrible mess ahead they went ahead and said sure why not. 

  Pain is a complex process, if you've ever broken a bone, had a surgery, or any procedure and were given a pain medication you may notice that codeine doesn't work as well as morphine, which doesn't work was well as fentanyl.  This lays in a multilayered process to include genetics, physiology, medication potency, neurogenic lay, neuropeptide receptors, neuropeptide function, and even down to something lesser considered like kidney function. This comes back to the billions of trains wildly running around on tracks, with different conductors, different tracks, different distances, different environments, they're all going to function different it's only natural.

  When you break your spine there can be neurological involvement or not, spinal breaks are not a guaranteed paralysis (even if it is more likely). The neurogenic system is electrical, hence the Frankenstein/Frankenweenie idea that if you shock the shit out of something you'll eventually get something going. Funny enough defibrillation (where they yell clear and shock the shit out of a very dead you) actually stops the heart. Shout out to the guy behind the pads, but the heart restarts itself (given it has what it needs to do so). Cardiac tangent aside, electricity is like water- it takes the path of least resistance and needs to be guided down a path to get to it's end goal. This is why when you break your spine everything from under the broken segment doesn't work right if there's neurogenic involvement. A dam has been built and the water cannot pass to what was originally the best path. An important consideration of this is in paralysis this will affect the vessels (which dilate and constrict achieve proper blood pressure supply to vital organs)- which is why blood pressure is difficult to maintain in paralysis patients. Because of this chain reaction in rural emergency rooms it's still pretty common so have a (FULLY CERTIFIED QUALIFIED) MEDICAL doctor to stick a (WELL LUBED) finger in.. well.. it lines up with the very end of your spine! Hence the saying 'if it grip, don't trip- if no force things are worse'. 

  The idea is- let's get with the conductor and main station to control all these trains. You can shoot bees all day but they're going to keep coming from the hive. So it's generally accepted in the world of medicine, except for a few weirdos who want to be different, that pain management starts in the brain and spinal cord. Specifically NPFFR1 (Neuropeptide FF Receptor 1) also known as a morphine modulating peptide, that doesn't mean morphine is the only thing that has an effect on this, since mu agonists (such as fentanyl) work alongside to block spinal NPFFR1 and NPFFR2- minimizing or eliminating pain. 

  Good news is, we've found the exact match to plug up this hole in NPFF creating NPFFR1 causing pain- which has been impossible in the past due to too many similar relatives allowing insufficient binding. The bad news? Well it comes from a plant that you really shouldn't eat. Hedera Helix Ivy! This is currently being tested in In Vitro studies, and not available for human testing yet. 

Time will only tell for it!

Here's the pubmed source if anyone is interestred :-)

DOI: 10.1002/anie.202417786