Harnessing Our Knowledge About Voltage-gated Sodium Channels to Better Manage Disorders of Abdominal Pain Perception in Inflammatory Bowel Disease
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.69734/5ha1r127Keywords:
voltage-gated sodium channel, abdominal pain, inflammatory bowel diseaseAbstract
Abdominal pain remains a major issue in health care. It is commonly associated with numerous conditions, frequently impacts individual quality of life, and is one of the most important determinants of healthcare expenditures and lost work hours in digestive disease, including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) (Bogale et al., 2022; Dahlhamer et al., 2018; Peery et al., 2022; Peery et al., 2019; Rikard et al., 2023). Additionally, there are no analgesics that have been designed specifically to address visceral pain, and the most commonly used medications to address abdominal pain in IBD are all associated with serious potential side effects (Coates & Bielefeldt, 2025). Patients and healthcare providers remain desperate to find new, safer and more effective analgesics. The pathological absence of abdominal pain in disorders such as Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) also poses a significant problem, as those affected may be unaware of the presence of chronic inflammation, and this can lead to the development of serious complications that might otherwise have been avoided (Du et al., 2025; Gonzalez-Lopez et al., 2018). Growing evidence indicates that voltage-gated sodium channels (VGSCs) play a critical role in transmission of pain-related signals throughout the body. These channels have strong potential to provide critical insights into disorders of abdominal pain in IBD, as well as to help investigators develop new, more selective, safer, and effective analgesics to manage this symptom in these and other related disorders.
This article provides a brief overview of the role that VGSCs have related to pain, with a special focus on pain derived from the viscera. It also discusses what is known regarding the potential for specific channels to serve as novel diagnostic tools and/or analgesic targets in IBD, as well as other chronic digestive disorders. Additionally, it will summarize current management approaches to abdominal pain and the pathological absence of abdominal pain in IBD, and how our knowledge of VGSCs can help improve care for these patients.
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