Advance in nicotinic acetylcholine receptors as analgesic targets / 药学实践杂志

ABSTRACT

Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) ,also known as neuronal nicotinic receptors ,are widely expressed throughout the central and peripheral nervous system .nAChRs play crucial roles in pain signaling .Recently ,agonists that tar-get specific nAChR subtypes have shown substantial efficacy in a wide range of acute and chronic pain models ,contributing to developing novel analgesic drugs with low drug dependence .Positive allosteric modulators offer new approaches for increasing the potency and therapeutic window of these drugs .This review summarizes the advances in nicotinic acetylcholine receptors as analgesic targets and anticipate the future directions in this field .