'Don't scratch it, you'll make it worse!' But our automatic response to an itch is to scratch it, and scratching does - at least temporarily - relieve the sensation of itching. Two new papers shed some light on the circuits that mediate the interaction between pain and itch, albeit while raising further questions.Both studies used conditional knockout mice to show that neurons containing vesicular glutamate transporter 2 (VCLUT2), which carries glutamate into vesicles for release at excitatory synapses, are important components of the pain and itch circuitry and in particular are involved in the regulation of itching by painful stimuli.
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