Researchers claim to have identified the genes that make some people more tolerant toward pain compared to others.
For the study, the researchers studied 2,721 people diagnosed with chronic pain for certain genes. Participants were under prescription opioid pain medications. The genes involved were COMT, DRD2, DRD1 and OPRK1.
The participants were told to rate their perception of pain on a scale from zero to 10. People who rated their pain as zero were excluded from the study. Researchers defined low pain perception as one, two or three; moderate pain perception was a score of four, five or six; and high pain perception was a score of seven, eight, nine or 10.
Nine percent reported to have a low pain perception, 46 percent had moderate pain perception and 45 percent had high pain perception.
People with low pain perception had 33 percent more prevalence of the DRD1 gene. Those in the moderate pain scale had COMT and OPRK variants at 25 percent and they were found to be 19 percent more in those with high pain perception. The DRD2 variant was 25 percent more common among those with a high pain perception.
"Our study is quite significant because it provides an objective way to understand pain and why different individuals have different pain tolerance levels," study author Tobore Onojjighofia, MD, MPH, with Proove Biosciences and a member of the American Academy of Neurology, said in a press release. "Identifying whether a person has these four genes could help doctors better understand a patient's perception of pain."
"Chronic pain can affect every other part of life," said Onojjighofia. "Finding genes that may be play a role in pain perception could provide a target for developing new therapies and help physicians better understand their patients' perceptions of pain."
The study will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 66th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia that will begin from April 26 and will continue till May 3.
