BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Itch is one of the major symptoms in dermatology clinics, and severely impairs the quality of life. Itch is frequently produced by environmental stimuli, especially heat or warmth. Changes of temperature on the skin surface and noxious heat stimuli augment and develop itch, respectively. Thermally provoked itch is sometimes intractable with existing treatments. DATA ...

About one person in four or five is conscious that scratching an irritation may produce an itch elsewhere. The sensation is well localised, comes and goes quickly, and recurs when scratching is repeated a short while later. Scratch and referred itch are ipsilateral; scratching the site of the referred itch does not cause the original spot to itch. Scatching face, palms, or soles does not produc...

Itch is immensely frustrating. Most studies focus on the cause of itch. In this issue of Neuron, Kardon et al. (2014) find that itch can be modulated by inhibitory neurons that produce dynorphin, an endogenous agonist of κ-opioid receptors.

itching is one of the most common skin symptoms. generalized pruritus occurs in 1-8% of pregnant women. it can create unpleasant feeling for these women especially at nights. most pregnant women avoid using synthetic drugs because of their side effects. peppermint is a plant which has been used as a traditional drug in iran. it decreases skin’s temperature. this study was done to determine the ...

BACKGROUND The homologous to the E6-AP carboxyl terminus (HECT)-type ubiquitin E3 ligase ITCH is an enzyme that plays a pivotal role in posttranslational modification by ubiquitin proteasomal protein degradation. Thioredoxin-interacting protein (TXNIP) is a negative regulator of the thioredoxin system and an endogenous reactive oxygen species scavenger. In the present study, we focused on the f...

Itch (pruritus) is an unpleasant sensation that leads to the desire to scratch (1). Pruritus may compromise quality of life and sleep in affected individuals. Pruritus is similar to pain, in being a subjective symptom; assessment of its intensity is a key issue in evaluating severity and therapeutic outcome of patients with pruritic disorders of diverse origins (cutaneous, systemic, neuropathic...

Functional neuroimaging studies have identified itch-related brain regions. However, no study has investigated the temporal aspect of itch-related brain processing. Here this issue was investigated using electrically evoked itch in ten healthy adults. Itch stimuli were applied to the left wrist and brain activity was measured using magnetoencephalography (MEG) and functional magnetic resonance ...

Itch can be suppressed by painful stimuli, but the underlying neural basis is unknown. We generated conditional null mice in which vesicular glutamate transporter type 2 (VGLUT2)-dependent synaptic glutamate release from mainly Nav1.8-expressing nociceptors was abolished. These mice showed deficits in pain behaviors, including mechanical pain, heat pain, capsaicin-evoked pain, inflammatory pain...

Numerous exploratory, proof-of-concept and interventional studies have used histaminergic and non-histaminergic human models of itch. However, no reliability studies for such surrogate models have been conducted. This study investigated the test-retest reliability for the response to histamine- and cowhage- (5, 15, 25 spiculae) induced itch in healthy volunteers. Cowhage spiculae were individua...

Chronic itch is symptomatic of many skin conditions and systemic diseases. Little is known about pathophysiological alterations in itch-signaling neural pathways associated with chronic itch. We used a mouse model of hindpaw chronic dry skin itch to investigate properties of presumptive itch-signaling neurons. Neurons in the lumbar superficial dorsal horn ipsilateral to hindpaw dry skin treatme...