Pain and VLK - Advances in Pain Prevention

By: Aiden Kim-

Pain is the enemy of every patient after surgery, and is often a very common point of concern for patients as a result. As responsible physicians, doctors often have to carefully balance the amount of pain medication that a patient can receive so that they receive enough to reduce the pain, but not so much that they risk side effects and addiction. However, new research from across a myriad of universities could change this very soon.

When pain, especially for longer durations, is triggered it normally travels up from wherever it came from towards the spinal chord and brain, where the mind perceives said pain due to the synaptic neurotransmission. Traditional methods of pain relief involve substances like opioids that attach to their respective receptors on nerve cells, thus reducing the perception of pain. And yet, these researchers found a new potential avenue for pain suppression.

For a long time it was theorised that a specific phosphorylating kinase was responsible for synaptic firing, which among many neurological functions included the sense of pain as this kinase was likely responsible for the neurological synaptic plasticity. These researchers from across universities were able to finally isolate a specific one: an ectokinase called vertebrate lonesome kinase (VLK) that plays a direct role in concentrating NMDA receptors, a receptor in charge of learning, memory, and pain.

With the discovery of VLK they were able to test in genetically engineered mice that the lack of VLK within their pain related sensory neurons did not develop acute hypersensitivity to pain after surgery, and conversely the administration of VLK in unmodified mice induced hypersensitivity to pain. Further research on human sensory neurons in tissue samples revealed similar results, showing a promising pathway towards addressing pain through a more direct means of care, rather than through the less precise methods that we use today.

Some helpful links:

https://news.utdallas.edu/health-medicine/pain-research-synapses-strength-2025/

https://news.tulane.edu/pr/tulane-scientists-uncover-new-pain-signaling-switch