RETARDATION OF PAIN DEVELOPMENT - A CASE OF RECOVERY FROM CONGENITAL INSENSITIVITY TO PAIN

Congenital analgesia is a rare genetic disorder. We report here that a 12-year-old boy was able to recover from congenital insensitivity to pain. Neurological examinations revealed that there was a 'stocking' d istribution of pain decrement on the lower extremities under the patie nt's knee joints. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of his brain showed gyrus thinning with sulcus widening at both sides of the parietal lob e. Southern blot hybridization probed with cDNAs of various opioid rec eptors did not detect any significant abnormality. Our results suggest that this rare case may not be genetically determined.