First biomarker for sleeping pain receptors

Whether it's a hot cooking pot, a sharp needle or a slamming door - such dangers are registered by the pain receptors in the human skin. Once activated, they send electrical signals to the spinal cord and brain. There are fast pain receptors for acute, stabbing pain. And there are slower ones for dull, persistent pain.

The so-called sleeping pain receptors belong to the latter group. In healthy tissue, they do not react to pressure, pricks or other physical stimuli. In patients with nerve pain, however, the sleeping sensors can become spontaneously active. They then continuously emit signals without any obvious reason for this.

This spontaneous activity is currently the only objectively measurable indication that peripheral nerves are permanently involved in the development of nerve pain. This means that sleeping pain receptors in humans are neither sleepy nor inactive, but are clinically relevant players in chronic pain.

One in ten suffers from neuropathic pain

Professor Barbara Namer from the Clinic and Polyclinic for Anaesthesiology, Intensive Care Medicine, Emergency Medicine and Pain Therapy at Würzburg University Hospital has been researching sleeping pain receptors for many years. The physician heads the "Neuronal signalling pathways of pain and itching in humans" working group in the ResolvePAIN clinical research group at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Pain Medicine.

Although the functional properties of sleeping pain receptors have been known for many years, their molecular identity has remained unclear until now. This meant that a crucial prerequisite for understanding chronic pain and developing therapeutic interventions was missing. There is a great need for this: around ten per cent of the population suffer from neuropathic pain.

Molecular signature published in the journal "Cell"

An international research team has now decoded the molecular signature of sleeping pain receptors. The results have been published in the journal Cell.

In the team, Barbara Namer was responsible for microneurography measurements on humans. This technically demanding method involves measuring the activity of individual pain receptors directly in the skin. The Würzburg researcher was thus able to prove that the regulatory body molecule oncostatin M specifically modulates dormant pain receptors in human skin.

Biomarker enables targeted search for the receptors

"For 30 years, we have dreamed of biomarkers for sleeping pain receptors. Now we have been able to realise our dream and open up access to a whole new world," says a delighted Barbara Namer.

"Now that we know the sleeping pain receptors at a molecular level, we can look for them specifically in different tissues," explains the scientist. "In pain patients, we can examine precisely these neurones, which we believe are the key to chronic pain in the periphery. This is the first important step in finding starting points for new drugs that calm these pain-causing cells."

Great expertise in the ResolvePain research group

Further research projects on sleeping pain receptors are being planned in Würzburg. The ResolvePain research group at the University Hospital has extensive expertise in chronic pain.

Publication

Molecular architecture of human dermal sleeping nociceptors. Cell, 4 February 2026, DOI 10.1016/j.cell.2025.12.048