The itching and its relationship with the nerves

Now scientists have found that the spinal nerves transmitting the signal of relief to the brain in monkeys, a possible step toward the search for new treatments for the persistent itching of the people.

A relief from the itching to level nervous, can help in the treatment, because more than 50 conditions can cause severe itching, including AIDS, Hodgkin’s disease and side effects of treatment of chronic pain, said Glenn J. Giesler, Jr. , a neuroscientist at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

Scratching can lead to severe skin infections and damage in people with chronic itching, therefore, the scientists want to find the way for these people can alleviate their anguish “without tear the skin,” he said.

While the medicines can alleviate some types of itching, the other cases resize current treatments.

Everyone knows what scratching it relieves itching, but in the study on monkeys funded by the federal government, reported to the journal Nature Neuroscience by Giesler and colleagues, gives a step to discover the mystery.

Perhaps the scientists can now identify the signals that tell them to these nerves to provide relief as the response and then try to imitate the action with drugs or some kind of simulative, he said.

Dr. Gil Yosipovitch at the University of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem that did not participate in the study, said that this work shows that the brain circuits individuals also play a role in the manner in which scratching relieves itching.

It called for a new study “very important” and said that the theme is open to new research on the nervous system and itching.