Common mechanism underlies many diseases of excitability

Inherited mutations in voltage-gated sodium channels (Navs) are associated with many different human diseases, including genetic forms of epilepsy and chronic pain. Theodore Cummins and colleagues, at Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, have now determined the functional consequence of three such mutations. As noted by Stephen Cannon and Bruce Bean, in an accompanying commentary, these results suggest that there might be a common mechanism for many channelopathies, diseases arising from mutations in ion channel genes such as those analysed by Cummins and colleagues...

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