Epibatidine, a nicotinic acetylcholine receptor agonist, inhibits the capsaicin response in dorsal root ganglion neurons.

Abstract In patch-clamp recordings from small–medium diameter dorsal root ganglion neurons in culture, (±)-epibatidine (1 μM) was able to inhibit the capsaicin response (IC 50 =0.32 μM) in neurons where there was no detectable direct nicotinic response. Thus, (±)-epibatidine may inhibit the vanilloid receptor in a manner that is not dependent upon nicotinic current activation, representing another mechanism by which such ligands could modulate vanilloid receptor signaling.