Instituut voor Neuropathische Pijn

The naturally occurring fatty acid of ethanolamine and palmitic acid, palmitoylethanolamide (PEA), is an important addition to our clinical armamentarium for the treatment of chonic neuropathic pain and related chronic painstates, such as the syndrome of Costen, diabetic and sciatic pain.

PEA is a lipidergic messenger and is known to mimic several endocannabinoid-induced biological responses via novel mechanism of action, without binding to CB1, CB2, and abn-CBD receptors.

During the last decades many imprssive biological actions of PEA have been described, such as influence on immune cells such as inhibition of mast cell degranulation, attenuation of leukocyte extravasation, and modulation of cytokine release from macrophages. have been described. Furthermore PEA acts not only on a variety of peripheral immunocompetent cell types but also seems to inhibit activated microglial cells, and these cells play an important role in both neuropathic pain as well as in secondary neuronal damage.