Spinal processing of bee venom-induced pain and hyperalgesia.

Subcutaneous injection of bee venom causes long-term neural activation and hypersensitization in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord, which contributes to the development and maintenance of various pain-related behaviors. The unique behavioral 'phenotypes' of nociception and hypersensitivity identified in the rodent bee venom test are believed to reflect a complex pathological state of inflammatory pain and might be appropriate to the study of phenotype-based mechanisms of pain and hyperalgesia. In this review, the spinal processing of the bee venom-induced different 'phenotypes' of pain and hyperalgesia will be described. The accumulative electrophysiological, pharmacological, and behavioral data strongly suggest that different 'phenotypes' of pain and hyperalgesia are mediated by different spinal signaling pathways. Unraveling the phenotype-based mechanisms of pain might be useful in development of novel therapeutic drugs against complex clinic pathological pain.