Is treatment efficacy an index of pain intensity?
Patient evaluation of the efficacy of pain treatment can mislead the clinician about the severity of pain. Patients tend to be satisfied with pain treatment, even when pain is not relieved. The relation of intensity of pain to patient perception of treatment efficacy is weak.
Our results suggest that multiple MAPKs can phosphorylate NRL and this phosphorylation pattern is altered by disease-associated NRL mutations. As inhibition of MAPK signaling pathways decreases NRL-mediated transactivation of rhodopsin promoter, we propose that phosphorylation changes associated with NRL mutations perturb gene expression in rods, leading to photoreceptor degeneration in retinopathies.