Background: Capsaicin, the pungent ingredient in chili peppers, is a vanilloid with noxious and analgesic effects that inhibits tetrodotoxin-resistant sodium currents. Because tetrodotoxin-resistant currents are found primarily in small-diameter nociceptor afferents of the peripheral nerves, their inhibition may lead to selective analgesia. Therefore, the authors evaluated the interactions between tetrodotoxin, a site 1 sodium channel blocker, and capsaicin on nerve blockade in vivo.
Methods: Percutaneous sciatic nerve injections with 0 to 9.9 mM capsaicin, 0 to 120 microM tetrodotoxin, or both were administered to male Sprague-Dawley rats. Thermal nociceptive and motor blockade were measured. Data were expressed as medians with 25th and 75th percentiles.
Results: Capsaicin produced a transient increase in thermal latency with no effect on motor strength. Tetrodotoxin reduced motor strength for a longer duration than nociception. The interaction between tetrodotoxin and capsaicin was synergistic, as evidenced by (1) supraadditive prolongation of both nociceptive and motor block, with the effect of capsaicin reversed by the vanilloid antagonist capsazepine, and (2) synergism in the frequency that rats achieved maximal block shown by isobolographic analysis. The combination of tetrodotoxin and capsaicin showed less motor predominance than tetrodotoxin did alone. Similar interactions were found between tetrodotoxin and resiniferatoxin (another vanilloid), and between capsaicin and saxitoxin (another site 1 sodium channel blocker), but much less so between bupivacaine and capsaicin.
Conclusions: Site 1 sodium channel blockers and vanilloids have synergistic effects on nerve blockade in vivo. These interactions may be useful in developing prolonged local anesthetics and elucidating mechanisms of functionally selective nerve blockade.