Altered Pain Sensitivity in Elderly Women with Chronic Neck Pain

Background

Age-related changes occur in both the peripheral and central nervous system, yet little is known about the influence of chronic pain on pain sensitivity in older persons. The aim of this study was to investigate pain sensitivity in elders with chronic neck pain compared to healthy elders.

Methods

Thirty elderly women with chronic neck pain and 30 controls were recruited. Measures of pain sensitivity included pressure pain thresholds, heat/cold pain thresholds and suprathreshold heat pain responses. The pain measures were assessed over the cervical spine and at a remote site, the tibialis anterior muscle.

Results

Elders with chronic neck pain had lower pressure pain threshold over the articular pillar of C5-C6 and decreased cold pain thresholds over the cervical spine and tibialis anterior muscle when compared with controls (p < 0.05). There were no between group differences in heat pain thresholds and suprathreshold heat pain responses (p > 0.05).

Conclusion

The presence of pain hypersensitivity in elderly women with chronic neck pain appears to be dependent on types of painful stimuli. This may reflect changes in the peripheral and central nervous system with age.     

Napping Reverses Increased Pain Sensitivity Due to Sleep Restriction

DesignA strictly controlled randomized crossover study with continuous polysomnography monitoring was performed.SettingLaboratory-based study.Participants11 healthy male volunteers.InterventionsVolunteers attended two three-day sessions: “sleep restriction” alone and “sleep restriction and nap”. Each session involved a baseline night of normal sleep, a night of sleep deprivation and a night of free recovery sleep. Participants were allowed to sleep only from 02:00 to 04:00 during the sleep deprivation night. During the “sleep restriction and nap” session, volunteers took two 30-minute naps, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.ConclusionsSleep restriction induces different types of hypersensitivity to pain stimuli in different body areas, consistent with multilevel mechanisms, these changes being reversed by napping. The napping restorative effect on pain thresholds result principally from effects on pain mechanisms, since it was independent of vigilance status.     

Genes Contributing to Pain Sensitivity in the Normal Population: An Exome Sequencing Study

Sensitivity to pain varies considerably between individuals and is known to be heritable. Increased sensitivity to experimental pain is a risk factor for developing chronic pain, a common and debilitating but poorly understood symptom. To understand mechanisms underlying pain sensitivity and to search for rare gene variants (MAF<5%) influencing pain sensitivity, we explored the genetic variation in individuals'' responses to experimental pain. Quantitative sensory testing to heat pain was performed in 2,500 volunteers from TwinsUK (TUK): exome sequencing to a depth of 70× was carried out on DNA from singletons at the high and low ends of the heat pain sensitivity distribution in two separate subsamples. Thus in TUK1, 101 pain-sensitive and 102 pain-insensitive were examined, while in TUK2 there were 114 and 96 individuals respectively. A combination of methods was used to test the association between rare variants and pain sensitivity, and the function of the genes identified was explored using network analysis. Using causal reasoning analysis on the genes with different patterns of SNVs by pain sensitivity status, we observed a significant enrichment of variants in genes of the angiotensin pathway (Bonferroni corrected p = 3.8×10⁻⁴). This pathway is already implicated in animal models and human studies of pain, supporting the notion that it may provide fruitful new targets in pain management. The approach of sequencing extreme exome variation in normal individuals has provided important insights into gene networks mediating pain sensitivity in humans and will be applicable to other common complex traits.     

Body Site Variation of Heat Pain Sensitivity

Thirty-two healthy human subjects provided thresholds for the perception of slight and moderate heat pain. Four body sites were tested bilaterally: thenar eminence of the hand, plantar surface of the foot, dorsolateral forearm, and lateral calf. Thresholds for the glabrous skin of the hand and foot were significantly greater than thresholds for the hairy skin of the arm and leg, the average difference being 1.3°c. Laterality was not a statistically significant factor. Thresholds increased progressively over 2–4 weeks of repeated testing, resulting in values averaging 0.6°c higher in the later sessions. The difference between moderate and slight pain thresholds averaged 1.1°c, and was consistent across body sites and with repeated testing.

The threshold values were normally distributed across subjects. Considerable intersubject variability was observed for both slight and moderate pain thresholds, more so on glabrous than on hairy skin sites. In comparison, the distribution of right-left difference values was narrower, demonstrating less intrasubject versus intersubject variability.

The highly significant difference in thresholds between glabrous and hairy skin sites demonstrates the importance of skin type for heat pain sensitivity. In contrast, there was no significant difference in heat pain sensitivity between comparable sites on the upper versus lower extremities, or between left and right sides.     

Increased Sensitivity to Inflammatory Pain Induced by Subcutaneous Formalin Injection in Serine Racemase Knock-Out Mice

D-Serine, an endogenous coagonist of the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR), is widely distributed in the central nervous system and is synthesized from L-serine by serine racemase (SR). NMDAR plays an important role in pain processing including central sensitization that eventually causes hyperalgesia. To elucidate the roles of D-serine and SR in pain transmission, we evaluated the behavioral changes and spinal nociceptive processing induced by formalin using SR knock-out (KO) mice. We found that SR is mainly distributed in lamina II of the dorsal horn of the spinal cord in wild-type (WT) mice. Although the formalin injected subcutaneously induced the biphasic pain response of licking in SR-KO and WT mice, the time spent on licking was significantly longer in the SR-KO mice during the second phase of the formalin test. The number of neurons immunopositive for c-Fos and phosphorylated extracellular signal-regulated kinase (p-ERK), which are molecular pain markers, in laminae I-II of the ipsilateral dorsal horn was significantly larger in the SR-KO mice. Immunohistochemical staining revealed that the distribution of SR changed from being broad to being concentrated in cell bodies after the formalin injection. On the other hand, the expression level of the cytosolic SR in the ipsilateral dorsal horn significantly decreased. Oral administration of 10 mM D-serine in drinking water for one week cancelled the difference in pain behaviors between WT and SR-KO mice in phase 2 of the formalin test. These findings demonstrate that the SR-KO mice showed increased sensitivity to inflammatory pain and the WT mice showed translocation of SR and decreased SR expression levels after the formalin injection, which suggest a novel antinociceptive mechanism via SR indicating an important role of D-serine in pain transmission.     

Pain Processing after Social Exclusion and Its Relation to Rejection Sensitivity in Borderline Personality Disorder

Objective

There is a general agreement that physical pain serves as an alarm signal for the prevention of and reaction to physical harm. It has recently been hypothesized that “social pain,” as induced by social rejection or abandonment, may rely on comparable, phylogenetically old brain structures. As plausible as this theory may sound, scientific evidence for this idea is sparse. This study therefore attempts to link both types of pain directly. We studied patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) because BPD is characterized by opposing alterations in physical and social pain; hyposensitivity to physical pain is associated with hypersensitivity to social pain, as indicated by an enhanced rejection sensitivity.

Method

Twenty unmedicated female BPD patients and 20 healthy participants (HC, matched for age and education) played a virtual ball-tossing game (cyberball), with the conditions for exclusion, inclusion, and a control condition with predefined game rules. Each cyberball block was followed by a temperature stimulus (with a subjective pain intensity of 60% in half the cases). The cerebral responses were measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging. The Adult Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire was used to assess rejection sensitivity.

Results

Higher temperature heat stimuli had to be applied to BPD patients relative to HCs to reach a comparable subjective experience of painfulness in both groups, which suggested a general hyposensitivity to pain in BPD patients. Social exclusion led to a subjectively reported hypersensitivity to physical pain in both groups that was accompanied by an enhanced activation in the anterior insula and the thalamus. In BPD, physical pain processing after exclusion was additionally linked to enhanced posterior insula activation. After inclusion, BPD patients showed reduced amygdala activation during pain in comparison with HC. In BPD patients, higher rejection sensitivity was associated with lower activation differences during pain processing following social exclusion and inclusion in the insula and in the amygdala.

Discussion

Despite the similar behavioral effects in both groups, BPD patients differed from HC in their neural processing of physical pain depending on the preceding social situation. Rejection sensitivity further modulated the impact of social exclusion on neural pain processing in BPD, but not in healthy controls.     

Effects of Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone Analogue Surfagon on Pain Sensitivity in Rats

Journal of Evolutionary Biochemistry and Physiology - We investigated the effects of the synthetic gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonistic analogue surfagon on the spinal and supraspinal mechnisms...     

Medical Assistance to the Aged

Aerosol therapy has three principal objectives: Mobilization of bronchial secretions, relief of bronchospasm and topical chemotherapy. It has become an important tool in the treatment of bronchopulmonary diseases. The equipment for inhalation therapy, however, should be adequate. Both large-capacity and small-capacity nebulizers must be available, and they must be the kind that will produce a mist with most of its particles only 0.5 to 2.5 micra in diameter. These nebulizers may be used alone or in conjunction with a variety of appliances that will deliver the aerosols to the respiratory tract. The use of humidifying agents as aerosols is extremely helpful in patients with retained bronchopulmonary secretions. In some patients who have particularly thick or gelatinous secretions and in patients with mucoviscidosis, ordinary water or saline solution is often not enough. Hypertonic saline may be of value in these cases, and it is suggested that half-molar (2.9 per cent) saline be administered in 10 per cent propylene glycol. In these cases, preparations containing detergents (tyloxypal) or other preparations containing enzymes (desoxyribonuclease or trypsin) may be given by the aerosol technique, with care not to cause irritation.The bronchodilator aerosol agents are of proved benefit in the treatment of bronchospastic disorders and are indicated in most cases of asthma and in those cases of emphysema in which there is definite evidence of associated bronchospasm.The value of the aerosol method of administering chemotherapeutic and antibiotic drugs has probably been overrated, and it is suspected that much of the benefit previously attributed to the therapeutic agent was actually a result of humidification and liquefaction.     

社区老年人上呼吸道定植菌调查及药敏分析

调查社区老年人上呼吸道的定植菌情况,能够了解引起社区老年人呼吸道感染的危险因素,分析主要定植菌的药敏结果,指导社区老年人呼吸道感染的经验治疗。取社区老年人咽喉部拭子进行细菌分离培养及鉴定,调查呼吸道定植菌情况,并对主要定植菌进行药敏试验,细菌鉴定应用法国生物梅里埃公司的细菌鉴定仪VITEK2和API系统,药敏试验采用K-B纸片琼脂扩散法,结果统计应用WHONET5.4软件。对706例社区老年人上呼吸道标本进行分离培养,有274份标本生长了致病菌或条件致病菌,其中248份标本有一种细菌生长,26份标本生长2种细菌,总体阳性率为38.8%。共分离9种细菌,居首位的细菌是肺炎克雷伯菌151株,占21.4%,其次为副流感嗜血杆菌74株,占10.5%,第3位的是β-溶血链球菌31株,占4.4%。75株肺炎克雷伯菌的药敏结果显示全部为敏感株,从药敏表型分析具有较高的同源性。老年人群上呼吸道定植菌以革兰阴性杆菌尤其以肺炎克雷伯杆菌为主,并对常用抗菌药物有高度敏感性,一旦发生定植菌感染应选择合适的抗菌药物并给予恰当的治疗方案,防止细菌产生耐药性。     

Sex Differences in How Social Networks and Relationship Quality Influence Experimental Pain Sensitivity

This is the first study to examine how both structural and functional components of individuals’ social networks may moderate the association between biological sex and experimental pain sensitivity. One hundred and fifty-two healthy adults (mean age = 22yrs., 53% males) were measured for cold pressor task (CPT) pain sensitivity (i.e., intensity ratings) and core aspects of social networks (e.g., proportion of friends vs. family, affection, affirmation, and aid). Results showed consistent sex differences in how social network structures and intimate relationship functioning modulated pain sensitivity. Females showed higher pain sensitivity when their social networks consisted of a higher proportion of intimate types of relationship partners (e.g., kin vs. non kin), when they had known their network partners for a longer period of time, and when they reported higher levels of logistical support from their significant other (e.g., romantic partner). Conversely, males showed distinct patterns in the opposite direction, including an association between higher levels of logistical support from one’s significant other and lower CPT pain intensity. These findings show for the first time that the direction of sex differences in exogenous pain sensitivity is likely dependent on fundamental components of the individual’s social environment. The utility of a social-signaling perspective of pain behaviors for examining, comparing, and interpreting individual and group differences in experimental and clinical pain reports is discussed.     

The Effect of Nimodipine on Calcium Homeostasis and Pain Sensitivity in Diabetic Rats

Summary 1. The pathogenesis of diabetic neuropathy is a complex phenomenon, the mechanisms of which are not fully understood. Our previous studies have shown that the intracellular calcium signaling is impaired in primary and secondary nociceptive neurons in rats with streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetes. Here, we investigated the effect of prolonged treatment with the L-type calcium channel blocker nimodipine on diabetes-induced changes in neuronal calcium signaling and pain sensitivity.2. Diabetes was induced in young rats (21 p.d.) by a streptozotocin injection. After 3 weeks of diabetes development, the rats were treated with nimodipine for another 3 weeks. The effect of nimodipine treatment on calcium homeostasis in nociceptive dorsal root ganglion neurons (DRG) and substantia gelatinosa (SG) neurons of the spinal cord slices was examined with fluorescent imaging technique.3. Nimodipine treatment was not able to normalize elevated resting intracellular calcium ([Ca²⁺] _i ) levels in small DRG neurons. However, it was able to restore impaired Ca²⁺ release from the ER, induced by either activation of ryanodine receptors or by receptor-independent mechanism in both DRG and SG neurons.4. The beneficiary effects of nimodipine treatment on [Ca²⁺] _i signaling were paralleled with the reversal of diabetes-induced thermal hypoalgesia and normalization of the acute phase of the response to formalin injection. Nimodipine treatment was also able to shorten the duration of the tonic phase of formalin response to the control values.5. To separate vasodilating effect of nimodipine Biessels et al., (Brain Res. 1035:86–93) from its effect on neuronal Ca²⁺ channels, a group of STZ-diabetic rats was treated with vasodilator – enalapril. Enalapril treatment also have some beneficial effect on normalizing Ca²⁺ release from the ER, however, it was far less explicit than the normalizing effect of nimodipine. Effect of enalapril treatment on nociceptive behavioral responses was also much less pronounced. It partially reversed diabetes-induced thermal hypoalgesia, but did not change the characteristics of the response to formalin injection.6. The results of this study suggest that chronic nimodipine treatment may be effective in restoring diabetes-impaired neuronal calcium homeostasis as well as reduction of diabetes-induced thermal hypoalgesia and noxious stimuli responses. The nimodipine effect is mediated through a direct neuronal action combined with some vascular mechanism.     

Increased Sensitivity to Thermal Pain Following a Single Opiate Dose Is Influenced by the COMT val158met Polymorphism

Increased pain sensitivity after opioid administration (opioid-induced hyperalgesia) and/or repeated painful stimuli is an individually varying and clinically important phenomenon. The functional polymorphism (val¹⁵⁸met) of the Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene regulates the metabolism of dopamine/noradrenaline. Individuals homozygous for the met¹⁵⁸ allele have been reported to have increased pain sensitivity and there are findings of lower µ-opioid system activation during sustained pain. We hypothesized that met/met individuals would exhibit higher pain sensitization and opioid-induced hyperalgesia in response to repeated pain stimuli and an intravenous injection of an opioid drug.Participants were 43 healthy subjects who went through an experiment where five blocks of pain were induced to the hand using a heat probe. After each stimulus subjects rated the pain on a visual analogue scale (VAS) from 0 mm (no pain) to 100 mm (worst possible pain). Before the second stimulus there was an intravenous injection of a rapid and potent opioid drug.At baseline there was no difference in pain ratings between the COMTval¹⁵⁸met genotypes, F(2, 39)<1. However, a repeated measures ANOVA for all five stimuli revealed a main effect for COMTval¹⁵⁸met genotype, F(2, 36) = 4.17, p = 0.024. Met/met individuals reported significantly more pain compared to val/val, p = 0.010. A pairwise comparison of baseline and the opioid intervention demonstrated that analgesia was induced in all groups (p = 0.042) without a separating effect for genotype (n.s).We suggest that the initial response of the descending pain system is not influenced by the COMTval¹⁵⁸met polymorphism but when the system is challenged the difference is revealed. An important clinical implication of this may be that the COMTval¹⁵⁸met related differences may be more expressed in individuals where the inhibitory system is already challenged and sensitive, e.g. chronic pain patients. This has to be proven in future studies where the impact of the COMTval¹⁵⁸met polymorphism on opioid treatment in patients is addressed.     

The Effects of Low-Intensity Millimeter-Wavelength Radiation and Electromagnetic Shielding on Pain Sensitivity in Rats

Here, we studied changes in pain sensitivity in rats subjected to low-intensity millimeter-wavelength electromagnetic radiation (EMR MM) of 7.1 mm and 0.1 mW/cm² in the occipital-collar region with daily exposure of 30 min over 21 days. As well, this radiation was combined with moderate electromagnetic shielding (EMS) which had the following parameters. The shielding coefficients of the constant component of the magnetic field along the vertical and horizontal constituents were 4.4- and 20-fold, respectively, with an exposure of 22 h/day over 21 days. The pain sensitivity was estimated with algometric tests, that is, the hot plate, flick-tail, and algesimeter-pincher tests; these allowed observation of the pain impulse at different regulatory levels. The algological effects of both individual and combined EMR MM and EMS were demonstrated. It was shown that EMR MM has an antinociceptive property when combined with EMS, as well as a modulation effect caused by shielding during hyperalgesia. At the same time, shielding reduces the antinociceptive effect of EMR MM.