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	Podcast:		UC Science Today
	Episode:		What tarantula venom tells us about pain
	Category:		Science & Medicine
	Duration:		00:01:00
	Publish Date:		2016-07-17 19:00:00
	Description:		What can tarantulas teach us about human pain, other than an unpleasant lesson? Researcher Jeremiah Osteen of the University of California, San Francisco discovered two toxins in tarantula venom that are surprisingly selective in the ways they trigger the sensation of pain. This suggests new avenues of research and possible drug treatments. "We look into the venom of the spider and find toxins that will activate certain pain pathways. That gives us a better sense of how those pain pathways work in other contexts, like when you cut yourself or fall down. And so what the toxins have given us the ability to do is to look very specifically at this particular type of pain pathway, to have a better understanding of what types of neurons are involved, what types of molecules are involved, in order to design better pain drugs." And these pathways have also been linked to certain neurological disorders, like epilepsy and Alzheimer’s disease .
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