TRPV4 and peripheral neuropathy: However, recent reports suggest that TRPV4 may also act as a mechano-transducer in primary afferent nociceptors; mice lacking a functional TRPV4 gene have impaired behavioral responses to intense noxious mechanical stimuli but normal response to low-threshold mechanical stimuli [5,6], and spinal intrathecal administration of oligodeoxynucleotides antisense to TRPV4 reverses mechanical hyperalgesia in a rat model of small-fiber painful peripheral neuropathy induced by the cancer chemotherapy agent Taxol® [4].