Discovery of this gene can benefit those who are at danger from lack of pain perception and help in the development of new treatments for pain relief.

People who are born unable to feel pain -- an inherited condition known as congenital insensitivity to pain (CIP) - accumulate numerous self-inflicted injuries, often leading to reduced lifespan. The researchers analysed genetic make-up of 11 families across Europe and Asia affected CIP. This enabled them to pinpoint the cause of the condition to variants of the gene PRDM12.
Family members affected by CIP carried two copies of the variant; however, if they had only inherited one copy from their parents, they were unaffected. The team found that in people affected by CIP particular pain-sensing neurons were absent.
"The ability to sense pain is essential to our self-preservation, yet we understand far more about excessive pain than we do about lack of pain perception," Geoff Woods from University of Cambridge said. "Both are equally important to the development of new pain treatments - if we know the mechanisms that underlie pain sensation, we can then potentially control and reduce unnecessary pain," Woods said.
The study was published in the journal Nature Genetics.
Source-Medindia