Central Projection of Pain Arising from Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) in Human Subjects |
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Authors: | Katharina Zimmermann Caroline Leidl Miriam Kaschka Richard W. Carr Pavel Terekhin Hermann O. Handwerker Clemens Forster |
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Affiliation: | Department of Physiology and Pathophysiology, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany.; University of Minnesota, United States of America, |
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Abstract: | Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is a subacute pain state arising 24–48 hours after a bout of unaccustomed eccentric muscle contractions. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to examine the patterns of cortical activation arising during DOMS-related pain in the quadriceps muscle of healthy volunteers evoked by either voluntary contraction or physical stimulation. The painful movement or physical stimulation of the DOMS-affected thigh disclosed widespread activation in the primary somatosensory and motor (S1, M1) cortices, stretching far beyond the corresponding areas somatotopically related to contraction or physical stimulation of the thigh; activation also included a large area within the cingulate cortex encompassing posteroanterior regions and the cingulate motor area. Pain-related activations were also found in premotor (M2) areas, bilateral in the insular cortex and the thalamic nuclei. In contrast, movement of a DOMS-affected limb led also to activation in the ipsilateral anterior cerebellum, while DOMS-related pain evoked by physical stimulation devoid of limb movement did not. |
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