Congenital insensitivity to pain

The landmark paper discussed in this chapter is ‘Congenital insensitivity to pain. A clinical, genetic and neurophysiological study of four children from the same family’, published by D. C. Thrush in 1973. The study of patients with congenital conditions that result in pain insensitivity has been invaluable in helping define the molecular mechanisms of sensory processing. These patients share a major defining phenotype (they feel little or no pain from birth), although they often have differing subtle symptoms which belie a host of separate conditions that we have now started to recognize with the advent of molecular genetics (e.g. loss-of-function mutations in the gene encoding Nav1.7, and mutations related to nerve growth factor (NGF)); these include congenital insensitivity to pain with anhydrosis (CIPA; thought to be due to mutations in the gene encoding the NGF receptor NTRK1) and hereditary sensory and autonomic neuropathies (HSANs) such as familial dysautonomia.