ReviewCurrent drug targets2016
Adenosine Monophosphate-activated Protein Kinase (AMPK) Activators For the Prevention, Treatment and Potential Reversal of Pathological Pain.
Review in Current drug targets, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 39 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
39 citing papers in PubMed, 57 citations in OpenAlex.
- The impact of metformin use on the outcomes of locally advanced breast cancer patients receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy: an open-labelled randomized controlled trial.Scientific reports · 2022Trial
- Targeting druggable kinases in neuropathic pain.npj drug discovery · 2026Review
- Exploration of the Mechanism of Erchen Decoction in Ameliorating Obesity by Regulating Lipid DepositionEndocrine, metabolic & immune disorders drug targets · 2026Article
- Preclinical Assessment of a Metformin-Melatonin Combination: Antinociceptive Synergism.Pharmaceutics · 2025Article
- Current and Evolving Concepts in the Management of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome: A Narrative Review.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- In silico design and computational screening of berberine derivatives for potential antidiabetic activity through allosteric activation of the AMPK pathway.In silico pharmacology · 2025Article
- Electroacupuncture ameliorates inflammatory pain through CB2 receptor-dependent activation of the AMPK signaling pathway.Chinese medicine · 2024Article
- Endocannabinoid biosynthetic enzymes regulate pain response via LKB1-AMPK signaling.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- The Influence of Sildenafil-Metformin Combination on Hyperalgesia and Biochemical Markers in Diabetic Neuropathy in Mice.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2023Article
- Targeting CD38 to Suppress Osteoarthritis Development and Associated Pain After Joint Injury in Mice.Arthritis & rheumatology (Hoboken, N.J.) · 2023Article
- Mitophagy and Traumatic Brain Injury: Regulatory Mechanisms and Therapeutic Potentials.Oxidative medicine and cellular longevity · 2023Review
- Article
- Chemotherapy-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy.Handbook of experimental pharmacology · 2023Article
- Oral administration of berberine limits post-traumatic osteoarthritis development and associated pain via AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) in mice.Osteoarthritis and cartilage · 2022Article
- The effects of metformin in the treatment of osteoarthritis: Current perspectives.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2022Review
- Mitochondria and sensory processing in inflammatory and neuropathic pain.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Metformin as a potential therapeutic for neurological disease: mobilizing AMPK to repair the nervous system.Expert review of neurotherapeutics · 2021Article
- Metformin: A Potential Therapeutic Tool for Rheumatologists.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Review
- Exploration of metformin as novel therapy for osteoarthritis: preventing cartilage degeneration and reducing pain behavior.Arthritis research & therapy · 2020Article
- Metformin: A Prospective Alternative for the Treatment of Chronic Pain.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2020Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Pathological pain is an enormous medical problem that places a significant burden on patients and can result from an injury that has long since healed or be due to an unidentifiable cause. Although treatments exist, they often either lack efficacy or have intolerable side effects. More importantly, they do not reverse the changes in the nervous system mediating pathological pain, and thus symptoms often return when therapies are discontinued. Consequently, novel therapies are urgently needed that have both improved efficacy and disease-modifying properties. Here we highlight an emerging target for novel pain therapies, adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK). AMPK is capable of regulating a variety of cellular processes including protein translation, activity of other kinases, and mitochondrial metabolism, many of which are thought to contribute to pathological pain. Consistent with these properties, preclinical studies show positive, and in some cases disease-modifying effects of either pharmacological activation or genetic regulation of AMPK in models of nerve injury, chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN), postsurgical pain, inflammatory pain, and diabetic neuropathy. Given the AMPK-activating ability of metformin, a widely prescribed and well-tolerated drug, these preclinical studies provide a strong rationale for both retrospective and prospective human pain trials with this drug. They also argue for the development of novel AMPK activators, whether orthosteric, allosteric, or modulators of events upstream of the kinase. Together, this review will present the case for AMPK as a novel therapeutic target for pain and will discuss future challenges in the path toward development of AMPK-based pain therapeutics.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.