T-type calcium channels: a potential target for the treatment of chronic pain

The treatment of chronic pain remains a complex clinical challenge. As basic research progresses, more is being understood about the mechanisms that underlie chronic pain. Understanding such physiology and how it changes in response to nerve injury, for example, enables the identification of potential targets for analgesic therapy. This review discusses one such target: the T-type calcium channel. There are a variety of other calcium channels, such as N-, P/Q- and L-type channels. To date, research on calcium channels has proved fruitful; for example, ziconotide (Prialt); which acts on N-type calcium channels, a target identified using animal pain models, is now available for the treatment of chronic pain.