Role of Voltage-Gate Calcium Channels in Pain Pathophysiology

The perception and processing of painful stimuli in afferent sensory neurons depends on the variety of voltage, ligand-gated and receptor-controlled calcium channels, including sodium, calcium, P2X class purinergic receptors, transient receptor potential (TRP) channels and G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) channels. The pathophysiology of the pain is quite complex, and the fact that, nowadays there are some difficulties on identification of exact reason of pain, developing right therapeutic approaches and effective continuity of the approaches. Calcium channels in the afferent pathway are thought to play a role in cell signaling beyond electrical activity. A large number of voltage-gated calcium channels are involved in primer afferent pain signal transduction. Among the calcium channel family, N and T-type calcium channels play the most critical role. For this reason, they have been very strongly involved in therapeutic targets. In this review, the role of voltage-gated calcium ion channels in pain physiopathology has been reviewed