Abstract
Chronic pain, when compared with other diseases, is one of the most disabling and one type of pain that generates higher costs to healthcare services, becoming a public health problem. This condition may have an inflammatory origin or can be developed due to peripheral nerve injury, and it is often associated with other disorders such as multiple sclerosis (an example of an autoimmune disorder origin). Chronic pain is characterized by sensory alterations (nociception) and other symptoms such as lethargy, depression and anxiety, which features a classic response of systemic disease, suggesting an underlying immune activity. Despite the improvements in chronic pain-related research, its treatment still presents serious difficulties, since, even with the administration of pharmacological treatment there is no complete reversal of the pain condition. In addition, there are constant reports of patients who suffer with undesirable adverse effects. Therefore, studies related to the development of new treatments for this pathology are necessary. It is known that crotoxin, despite the toxic effect, presents at low doses immunomodulatory, anti-inflammatory, antitumor and antinociceptive effects, which makes it a potential drug for the treatment of chronic pain. It is also known that the nanostructured silica SBA-15, when used as an adjuvant, can reduces the toxicity and promotes and increase in the immune response to different compounds. Thus, the aim of this study is to evaluate whether crotoxin, when coupled to silica SBA-15, has its toxic effect decreased and its analgesic effect increased, also evaluating its interference on the immune and inflammatory responses in models of Partial Sciatic Nerve Ligation (PSNL) and Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis (EAE).
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