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Spider venom may hold chemical keys to new painkillers

A research team at the University of Queensland in Australia has found seven compounds in spider venom that are able to block the human pain pathway, a discovery that may lead to more effective painkillers. When a person is hurt, nerves in the part of body that experienced the pain send signals to the brain via the body’s pain pathways. The most common pain pathway includes Nav1.7, a sodium ion channel that’s contained in neurons within the root of the spinal cord, along the length of the spinal cord and near the apex of the skull’s temporal bone.