“…In one of the pairwise comparisons, 121 compounds were shared between the 2 (one Kampo and one TCM) formulations. These were then re-categorised ( Figure 2 ) using literature analysis into opioid/alkaloid candidate analgesics (alkaloids related to known opioid receptor ligands or ion channel ligands, 4 convergent compounds) ( Bienz et al, 2002 ; Kai et al, 1998 ; National Center for Biotechnology Information ; Nichols and Lee, 2018 ; Qi et al, 2019 ; Saeed et al, 1997 ; Song et al, 2000 ; Xu et al, 2005 ; Zhong et al, 1995 ), potential ligands for nociceptive ion channels (terpenes, 49 convergent compounds), components with other demonstrated neuroactivity ( 15 convergent compounds), components with bioactivity indirectly related to pain (anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidants, 16 convergent compounds) and compounds with other types of bioactivity but no obvious link to analgesia (56 convergent compounds) ( Antwi et al, 2018 ; Bommareddy et al, 2019 ; Crupi and Cuzzocrea, 2017 ; Devi et al, 2015 ; Do et al, 2019 ; Henry and Maisch, 1890 ; Herout and Sykora, 1958 ; Huang et al, 2015 ; Hui et al, 2015 ; Kimura et al, 2001 ; Ko et al, 2017 ; Kumar and Muller, 2000 ; Kwon et al, 2018 ; Le et al, 2018 ; Li et al, 2009 ; Madeo et al, 2018 ; National Center for Biotechnology Information ; Ng et al, 2008 ; Qian, 2002 ; Shim et al, 2018 ; Wang et al, 2019 ; Ye et al, 2018 ; Zeisel, 1981 ). These data are summarized in Figure 1 .…”