Scientists are baffled by one of humankind's most annoying problems - itching - an almost universal misery for which there is, as yet, no adequate explanation or treatment."Why we can't stop scratching remains a big puzzle for researchers," said Zhou-Feng Chen, a neuroscientist at Washington University, St. Louis.
"Itch can be devastating to patients and lead to extensive loss of quality of life," said Matthias Ringkamp, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. "Unfortunately, the treatment of itch is often unsatisfactory."
The recent discovery of an "itchy gene," however, may offer hope for better treatments, Chen said. A drug to block that gene might relieve the distress of itching.
Specialists on pruritus - the scientific term for itching - described their work Monday at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Washington.
They distinguished between two major types of itch: a mild form that can be treated with common antihistamines such as Benadryl and a severe form that cannot.
"The second type is often severe and very common, since more than 50 diseases and conditions can cause it," said Glenn J. Giesler, a neuroscientist at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. "There are no treatments currently available for this latter type of itch."
As many as 10 percent of the people in the world endure chronic itching, said Ben Maddison, a researcher at Unilever, a multinational consumer-product corporation.
The itch-related gene identified by Chen is labeled GRPR, for gastrin-releasing peptide receptor. When he injected it under the skin of laboratory mice, they "scratched like crazy," he said.
"The discovery of the first itchy gene in the spinal cord raises the hope that it may be possible to relieve itchiness in patients by blocking the GRPR function," Chen said. [via physorg]
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