Neuromedin N

Where it comes from

Made in

The same cells as neurotensin, cut from the same precursor

Sent out by

With neurotensin

Acts on

• Neurotensin receptors

What it does

• Acts like neurotensin at the same receptors, and is destroyed in seconds in blood ¹
• Shares neurotensin’s last three residues, which is the part the receptors read, and that is why the two cannot easily be told apart by their effects
• Studied in the brain for its effects on dopamine, pain and body temperature, always alongside neurotensin rather than instead of it ²

In medicine

• None of its own: no medicine, and no clinical assay measures it
• The blood test used in cohort studies measures pro-neurotensin, the uncut precursor the two peptides come from, so published “neurotensin” risk associations belong to both

Beyond the body’s own use

• Not studied as a treatment. It was identified in pig spinal cord in 1984 and has had no programme of its own since ¹
• What is genuinely unknown is whether it does anything the longer peptide does not. Because it is cleared faster and binds more weakly, it may be no more than a second product of the same cut; nobody has made a stable version to find out ²