"I was working in the lab late one night..."

Do Ron and Kim know what you’re doing to their little buddy, Rufus?

Strange Creature Immune to Pain

As vulnerable as naked mole rats seem, researchers now find the hairless, bucktoothed rodents are invulnerable to the pain of acid and the sting of chili peppers.

“Why would you even test for that?” asks my daughter.

"They're the nicest, sweetest animals I've ever worked with — they look frightening, but they're very gentle," said neurobiologist Thomas Park at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

So why the hell are you subjecting them to these tests!? The mole rats lack a “chemical Substance P which causes the feeling of burning pain in mammals.”

The researchers discovered that when unconscious mole rats had their paws injected with a slight dose of acid, "about what you'd experience with lemon juice," Park said, as well as some capsaicin — the active ingredient of chili peppers — the rodents showed no pain.

Okay, so your means of torture upon these “nicest, sweetest animals” proved futile. Did you leave it at that? Noooooo!

To explore their pain resistance further, the researchers used a modified cold sore virus to carry genes for Substance P to just one rear foot of each tested rodent. Park and his colleagues found the DNA restored the naked mole rats' ability to feel the burning sensation other mammals experience from capsaicin.

"They'd pull their foot back and lick it," Park said. Other feet remained impervious to the sting of capsaicin.

Hell, yeah! You gave them a freakin’ HOT FOOT!

"Capsaicin is very specific for exciting the fibers that normally have Substance P," Park added. "They're not the fibers that respond to a pinprick or pinch, but the ones that respond after an injury or burn and produce longer-lasting pain."

Curiously, the researchers found that mole rats remained completely insensitive to acids, even with the Substance P genes. This suggests there is a fundamental difference in how their nerves respond to such pain.

Sometimes I wonder, “How the heck did they come up with the idea to do this? And why?”

Specifically, Park noted this research adds to existing knowledge about Substance P. "This is important specifically to the long-term, secondary-order inflammatory pain. It's the pain that can last for hours or days when you pull a muscle or have a surgical procedure," he explained.

As such, these findings might shed new light on chronic pain. Park said, "We're learning which nerve fibers are important for which kinds of pain, so we'll be able to develop new strategies and targets."

Okay, that sort of explains the “Why?” I'm all for relieving chronic pain.

Now about that “How did you decide to do this” question….