Schistosoma mansoni is a waterborne parasitic worm that can enter the body and cause harm without triggering the typical symptoms associated with parasitic infections. It’s this stealthiness that makes researchers think it could have some practical medical uses, according to researchers who published their findings in the Journal of Immunology.
S. mansoni is a helminth that infects people by burrowing painlessly through the skin. Once inside, it settles in for an extended stay, leading to schistosomiasis, a chronic condition affecting hundreds of millions globally. But here’s the wild part: it burrows into you by hacking your nerve signals, telling your brain that nothing is going wrong.
It’s close to the point where you’ll ever see a parasitic worm pull off that heist movie trick where they loop security camera footage to mask the crew cutting a hole in a vault door.
New research has shown that S. mansoni releases molecules that suppress a specific type of sensory neuron, known as TRPV1+, which is the same type that sends alerts about heat, stinging, and pain, and which helps kick-start immune responses.
This parasite snips the wires on your internal alarm system before walking into the front door.
This Parasitic Worm Can Turn Off Your Body’s Pain Sensors
To prove this, researchers infected mice with S. mansoni, then tested their reaction to heat. Infected mice took longer to withdraw their paws from the heat source, suggesting that their pain sensitivity had been dulled. Spinal neuron samples confirmed that exposure to the parasite reduced immune activity.
Of course, the researchers began to dream up ways that bypassing our body’s security systems could be put to good use in the medical field. Scientists believe that isolating these molecules could lead to safer treatments for chronic pain or even inflammation-based conditions, offering a non-opioid path to pain relief.
They also envision a preventive topical treatment for people in high-risk regions, in the form of a lotion that activates TRPV1+ neurons, making it harder for S. mansoni to infiltrate undetected. In essence, it would be a cream that boosts pain, rather than kills it, so that you know you are infected.
I guess you’re going to have to feel a little bit of pain if you want to catch such a sneaky enemy.
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