Chronic pain is a challenging malady that most people will face at some point in their lifetime. Sufferers represent a large burden on health care systems, and with no effective treatments, will also experience a severely reduced quality of life. Therefore, new treatments are desperately need, and a greater understanding of the basic biology will help deliver them. While acute and chronic pain are highly conserved, there has only been a limited investigation beyond vertebrate models.
Here we present a model of UV induced chronic pain in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. This model causes prolonged sensitivity to thermal stimulus and decreased sleep quality and amount. Using well established genetic tools, we demonstrated that pain and sleep can be genetically uncoupled. We also identify that Drosophila Tumour Necrosis Factor (TNF) signalling in Astrocyte-like-glia is involved in the maintenance of sleep defects after injury.
This work represents the first example of glial involvement in sleep defects in a chronic pain model and provides new insights into the role of TNF in sleep regulation under chronic inflammatory conditions. We will continue to explore this relationship, with the goal of uncovering how astrocytes control the UV damage response and regulate sleep.