Scientists have discovered that the body can naturally dull pain through its own localized “benzodiazepine-like” peptides.
A groundbreaking study led by a University of Leeds scientist has unveiled new insights into how the body manages pain, offering a potential path toward treating long-term pain without relying on addictive opioids.
Professor Nikita Gamper, from the School of Biomedical Sciences at Leeds, and his research team discovered that the human body can generate its own form of natural “sleeping pills” that resemble benzodiazepines. These substances can reduce signals from specific nerves, influencing how intensely pain is felt.
The research, which builds upon earlier studies conducted by Professor Gamper and Professor Xiaona Du of Hebei Medical University in Shijiazhuang, China, could mark a turning point in pain management. With new funding secured for the coming year, the team plans to continue exploring how this biological process could lead to safer, more effective treatments for people suffering from chronic pain.
A New Path Beyond Opioids
Professor Gamper said: “We understand quite a bit about how a person ends up feeling pain, but we can’t do much about it. Despite all the amazing discoveries and textbooks written, opioids are still the gold standard.
“Nothing substantially better than opioids has been produced. If you suffer from pain, you will likely end up with either ibuprofen, which is OK for mild pain, but absolutely does nothing for very strong pain or neuropathic pain; or opioids which are very efficacious but dangerous.”
Benzodiazepines (‘benzos’) are a type of depressant medication commonly prescribed to help with sleep problems, anxiety, and seizures. In their research, Professor Nikita Gamper, Professor Xiaona Du, and Dr. Temugin Berta from the University of Cincinnati discovered that certain cells connected to human nerves, located within structures known as spinal ganglia, can release a peptide that operates in a similar way to benzos.
Because this process takes place only within the peripheral nervous system, it does not cause the entire nervous system to “go to sleep.” As a result, these naturally produced peptides could offer pain relief without the dangerous side effects or risk of addiction associated with opioid drugs.
The study’s results show that nerves are capable of “tuning out” pain signals or limiting how much pain the brain perceives, revealing a potential new mechanism for controlling discomfort at its source.
Turning Down Pain at Its Source
Dr. Ganesan Baranidharan, a consultant in pain medicine in Leeds, said the findings could offer some hope to patients trying to manage daily chronic pain.
He said: “Chronic pain is one of the health service’s biggest problems.
“In clinics we try to manage pain with ‘self management’ – learning to live with pain – or we try to help where we can with physiotherapy, injections, or surgeries. However, some patients will have persistent pain needing medicines, and long-term use of nerve painkillers and opioids can cause significant side effects such as feeling like a zombie, memory impairment, etc.
“While some patients do really well on small dose opioids, we need more options to treat chronic pain. The more we can discover, and find appropriate drugs to treat certain conditions, the better for our patients.”
Toward Safer Pain Treatments
Professor Nikita’s findings – published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI) – open up the possibility of developing new, targeted medicines that could block pain signals without crossing the blood-brain barrier and affecting other brain functions.
For up to a third of the world’s population, pain is a daily burden, and despite being the primary reason for doctor visits across the world, pain is still poorly treated.
Cincinnati’s Dr. Berta, whose research is sponsored by the NIH HEAL initiative, added: “Millions of people suffer from chronic pain and more than half have trouble finding adequate relief. As pain scientists, we have the opportunity to discover new mechanisms that contribute to the progression of chronic pain and share breakthroughs that may hold promise for new treatment strategies.”
Professor Gamper’s decision to focus his work in this area was strongly influenced by seeing a member of his immediate family suffer with neuropathic pain.
He added: “Pain is an interesting phenomenon to study, but ultimately it’s not curiosity that drives you, it’s the ability or at least opportunity to relieve people from pain.”
The teams in Leeds and Shijiazhuang worked together from the research’s inception, with Dr. Berta in Cincinnati coming on board after the scientists discussed their work at a Society for Neuroscience conference in 2018.
Although the scientists had not previously met, they knew each other’s wor,k and by sharing knowledge, they soon realized they had been working on similar experiments and produced identical results. Dr. Berta believes their work “embodies the collaborative spirit of academic research” and shows how significant advancements in understanding and treating pain can be made when scientists work together.
Professor Du said: “I vividly recall the excitement when Nikita informed me that Temo’s lab had obtained similar primary results to ours, solidifying our decision to pursue the study further.
“I hope that our future collaboration will yield even more and better outcomes.”
New Research Funding
A research team led by Professor Gamper in Leeds has now received £3.5 million in funding from the Medical Research Council and the pharmaceutical industry to look further into their findings. A new project was started in January 2025 and will run for five years, looking more closely at potential markers of neuropathic pain and new approaches for pain management, incorporating this new knowledge about spinal ganglia and the ‘benzo’ peptide.
Reference: “Peripheral gating of mechanosensation by glial diazepam binding inhibitor” by Xinmeng Li, Arthur Silveira Prudente, Vincenzo Prato, Xianchuan Guo, Han Hao, Frederick Jones, Sofia Figoli, Pierce Mullen, Yujin Wang, Raquel Tonello, Sang Hoon Lee, Shihab Shah, Benito Maffei, Temugin Berta, Xiaona Du and Nikita Gamper, 18 June 2024, The Journal of Clinical Investigation.
DOI: 10.1172/JCI176227
Funding: Wellcome Trust, Medical Research Council, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Science Fund for Creative Research Groups, NIH/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
News
Optogenetics Pioneers Win 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Peter Hegemann, Georg Nagel, and Karl Deisseroth for the development of optogenetics, a revolutionary technology that uses light to control individual neurons [...]
Molecular Manufacturing: The Future of Nanomedicine – From NanoappsMedical Inc.
This book explores the revolutionary potential of atomically precise manufacturing technologies to transform global healthcare, as well as practically every other sector across society. This forward-thinking volume examines how envisaged Factory@Home systems might enable the cost-effective [...]
What is ‘American Covid’ and how bad is it?
Cases of so-called ‘American Covid’ are on the rise in the UK. The strain is officially called XFG, or ‘Stratus’, and is the most common variant in North America, hence the name. It might soon [...]
Researcher at Russian plague laboratory dies of ‘unknown’ infection
Russian authorities have imposed "anti-epidemic measures" after a laboratory worker at an institute in Siberia dedicated to studying the plague and other infectious diseases died of a mysterious illness. The researcher, a 28-year-old female [...]
GHCE Concept
From the preface of the book Global Health Care Equivalency in the Age of Nanotechnology, Nanomedicine and Artificial Intelligence, Edited by Frank Boehm: Since the publication of my first book (Nanomedical Device and Systems [...]
A Surprising Brain Signal Could Explain Why Eating Less Protein Extends Lifespan
A new paper suggests that limiting protein intake triggers a coordinated response throughout the body that may help explain how protein restriction affects healthy aging. Animals respond to protein restriction, or reduced protein in [...]
Back and shoulder surgery is often worse than useless
Millions of operations should be scrapped SIX IN TEN Britons have surgery at some point. So do lots of Americans, at a cost of perhaps $500bn a year, a third of all spending on [...]
Cocaine plays with mind, hijacks brain circuit, drives increasingly rigid and repetitive behavior
Researchers have found that cocaine hijacks brain circuit, which to drive increasingly rigid and repetitive behavior. The brain circuit that normally participates in selecting natural mouth and face movements, but which becomes disproportionately engaged [...]
Injectable nanodevices could provide effective treatment for drug-resistant glioblastoma
The brain cancer glioblastoma is one of the most aggressive and treatment-resistant cancers known to medicine, carrying a median survival of just 12-15 months, even with the best available care. Now, researchers at the [...]
New Treatment Cuts “Bad” Cholesterol in Half for a Full Year
A single infusion of an experimental CRISPR-Cas9 therapy was reported to safely lower LDL cholesterol by 52.5% and triglycerides by 47.8%, as measured 12 months after treatment. What if one infusion could keep cholesterol [...]
Too Much RNA Can Drain a Cell’s Energy, Scientists Discover
A virus may cripple a cell’s power supply simply by producing too much of a molecule the cell needs to survive. New research from the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences [...]
West African scientists warn of weakening health systems and urge stronger outbreak detection
LOME, Togo (AP) — West African laboratory scientists called on governments Friday to strengthen capacity to detect disease outbreaks to avoid another major outbreak, saying health systems across the region are becoming weaker. Participants [...]
A Little-Known Protein Could Point to a New Way To Treat Alzheimer’s
A study suggests that increasing SORLA protein levels could help treat Alzheimer’s disease and other disorders involving tau protein. Increasing SORLA, a protein with a protective role in the brain, helped mice withstand damage [...]
Cancer’s Hidden Antioxidant Shield Helps It Escape the Immune System
Blocking an antioxidant protein that tumors use to suppress immune attacks improved cancer immunotherapy responses in mice. Cancer cells can release antioxidants that interfere with the immune cells trying to kill them. Researchers have [...]
Scientists Find a Berry Compound That Helps Muscle Cells Burn Fat
Pterostilbene, a compound found naturally in some foods, affects how skeletal muscles process fats by stabilizing a protein called PPARδ and increasing its signaling activity. Pterostilbene, a natural compound found in blueberries, grapes, and [...]
Two Hidden Forces Help Build the Human Brain Before Birth
Scientists have uncovered two surprising forces that help guide how the human brain forms before birth. Before birth, the human brain is shaped in large part by an unusual class of stem cells known [...]
