Study Finds Potential Route to Relieve Chronic Nerve Pain

For people living with chronic nerve pain, relief from the stabbing, burning sensation can be hard to come by. Part of the problem arises at the sensory neurons in the dorsal root ganglion (DRG). After an injury, those neurons produce lactate, a normal byproduct of cellular metabolism. Chronic pain may take root when lactate sticks around longer than it should.

This image of the mouse DRG illuminates sensory neurons. The neurons dyed red produce a protein called CCT2, while the green portions highlight a protein called IGF2BP2; which, when levels get too high, is associated with neuropathic pain

In a study published Jan. 2026 in The Journal of Neuroscience, a team of researchers at Xuzhou Medical University in China explored how interventions targeting the process generating this protein could alleviate pain.

The process of making lactate triggers the gene responsible for creating the protein IGF2BP2. Turns out, the enduring presence of IGF2BP2 enhances the stability of CCT2 protein as well as the efficiency by which cells in the injured DRG produce CCT2, fueling chronic nerve pain.

By impeding the cellular process that normally leads to too much lactate, the researchers decreased IGF2BP2 protein concentration and curbed pain responses in mice. In addition,  injecting lactate into uninjured mice increased IGF2BP2 protein production, spurring neuropathy.

The team believes it may be possible to identify a means of interfering with this process with medication. If so patients living with neuropathy could one day have a new option to relieve it. 

About the Author

Bella Isaacs-Thomas

Bella is the Staff Writer and Editor for BrainFacts. She previously worked as a digital science reporter at PBS NewsHour, where she was named a fellow in the 2022-2023 class of the National Science-Health-Environment Reporting Fellowships (SHERF) and earned a 2021 D.C. Science Writers Association Newsbrief Award for writing. She graduated from the University of Michigan with a bachelor's degree in 2018.