We know that insects can sense danger and any other stimuli that might be perceived as harmful to them. But scientists have discovered that insects may also experience what we can describe as chronic pain.
Chronic pain comes in two forms: inflammatory and neuropathic. Neely and colleagues focused on neuropathic pain, which occurs after damage to the nervous system and, in humans, is usually described as a burning or shooting pain.
They damaged a nerve in one leg of a fly, allowed it to fully heal, then noticed how the other legs had become hypersensitive. Next, they genetically dissected exactly how that works.
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