There is a strange syndrome calledCIPA(Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis) that barelyaffects one in 100 million people worldwide and is characterized by preventing pain. Until the 1970s, experts thought that insensitivity to pain was due to an overproduction of endorphins, a natural relaxant that in excess leaves the body fully doped. But the explanation was not entirely convincing, and if true, the problem should be able to be corrected by administering naloxone, a substance that blocks endorphins and other anesthetics such as morphine. Experience showed that this remedy did not work.
The answer to the origin of the CIPA was finally found by Geoffrey Woods and his colleagues at the Addenbrooks Hospital in Cambridge (Great Britain) by studying the DNA of the family of the “fakir boy”, nickname by which a small Pakistani street artist capable of walking on burning embers and stabbing knives in their arms without flinching. In six of their relatives they identified the same insensitivity to pain that the boy’s “talent” caused, and which had left its mark in the form of infantile wounds and lacerations on the lips and tongue, as well as poorly healed bone fractures. The cause, Woods discovered, wasa genetic problem, specifically a mutation in the SCN9A gene on chromosome 2, which encodes part of the sodium channel that regulates the transmission of the nerve impulse in the neurons responsible for capturing painful stimuli. Without him,the communication pathways between pain sensors and the brain are blocked, so it is impossible to perceive even the slightest ailment.
