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Tick bites severely threaten human health because they allow the transmission of many deadly pathogens, including viruses, bacteria, protozoa and helminths. Pruritus is a leading symptom of tick bites, but its molecular and neural bases remain elusive.
Learn More >Accurate, up-to-date estimates of the burden of migraine and severe headache are important for evidence-based decision-making about workforce needs and the distribution of health resources. We used data from US government health surveys to report the prevalence, trends, and impact of this condition by age, sex, and poverty status.
Learn More >To evaluate the association of routine exercise with headache frequency, intensity, and duration among adults with episodic migraine (EM).
Learn More >Migraine is a common disabling neurological disorder. Current acute treatments for migraine in adolescents are mostly pharmacological and may have limited effectiveness, can cause side effects, and may lead to medication overuse. There is an unmet need for effective and well-tolerated treatments. Remote electrical neuromodulation (REN) is a novel acute treatment of migraine that stimulates upper arm peripheral nerves to induce conditioned pain modulation (CPM)-an endogenous analgesic mechanism. The REN device (Nerivio , Theranica Bio-Electronics Ltd., Israel) is a FDA-authorized device for acute treatment of migraine in adults. This study assessed the efficacy and safety of REN in adolescents with migraine.
Learn More >Prominent clinical problems related to the skin-nerve interface include barrier dysfunction and erythema but it is the symptoms of pain and itch that lead patients to seek medical treatment. Tissue-engineered innervated skin models provide an excellent solution for studying the mechanisms underlying neuro-cutaneous disorders for drug screening, and cutaneous device development. Innervated skin substitutes provide solutions to the traditional monolayer cultures and have advantages that make them preferable to animal studies for certain applications, such as measuring somatosensation. The tissue-engineered innervated skin models replicate the complex stratified epidermis that provides barrier function in native skin, a feature that is lacking in monolayer co-cultures, while allowing for measurement of nerve function that cannot be achieved in animal models. In this review, the advantages and disadvantages of different cell sources and scaffold materials will be discussed and a presentation of the current state of the field is reviewed.
Learn More >To determine whether pollen triggers urologic chronic pelvic pain syndrome (UCPPS) flares.
Learn More >To create a descriptive profile of chronic pain severity in men with lifetime cumulative violence histories, as a target and/or a perpetrator, and investigate how chronic pain severity is associated with and predicted by lifetime cumulative violence severity and known determinants of chronic pain.
Learn More >In recent decades, an increasing number of neuroimaging studies utilizing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have explored the differential effects of postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) on brain structure and function. We systematically reviewed and integrated the findings from relevant neuroimaging studies in PHN patients. A total of 15 studies with 16 datasets were ultimately included in the present study, which were categorized by the different neuroimaging modalities. The results revealed that PHN was closely associated with structural/microstructural and functional abnormalities of the brain mainly located in the 'pain matrix', including the thalamus, insula, parahippocampus, amygdala, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, precentral gyrus and inferior parietal lobe, as well as other regions, such as the precuneus, lentiform nucleus and brainstem. Furthermore, a disruption of multiple networks, including the default-mode network, salience network and limbic system, may contribute to the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying PHN. The findings indicate that the cerebral abnormalities of PHN were not restricted to the pain matrix but extended to other regions, profoundly affecting the regulation and moderation of pain processing in PHN. Future prospective and longitudinal neuroimaging studies with larger samples will elucidate the progressive trajectory of neural changes in the pathophysiological process of PHN.
Learn More >In the context of neuropathic pain, the contribution of regeneration to the development of positive symptoms is not completely understood. Several efforts have been done to described changes in axotomized neurons, however, there is scarce data on changes occurring in intact neurons, despite experimental evidence of functional changes. To address this issue, we analyzed by immunohistochemistry the presence of phosphorylated signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (pSTAT3), an accepted marker of regeneration, within DRGs where axotomized neurons were retrogradely labeled following peripheral nerve injury. Likewise, we have characterized abnormal electrophysiological properties in intact fibers after partial nerve injury.
Learn More >To ensure an adequate pain therapy with high patient adherence, it is necessary to know and consider patient preferences. A discrete choice experiment (DCE) was used to obtain patients' preferences regarding treatment with systemic or topical pain medication. Patients with peripheral neuropathic pain (pNP) were recruited in two pain-focused practices in Germany. To identify relevant attributes of topical or systemic pain medication, a literature review and face-to-face interviews with experts for pain treatment were conducted. The attributes used in the choice scenarios were noticeable onset of effect, time spent in medical office, risk of systemic and local side effects, impairment of daily life with regards to sleep quality and sexuality. The model was estimated with a mixed multinomial logit regression model. The study included 153 participants suffering from moderate to severe pNP. Most important attributes from patient's perspective was noticeable onset of effect (Odds Ratio 2.141 [95%-Confidence Interval 1.837 – 2.494]), followed by risk of systemic side effects (2.038 [1.731 – 2.400]), risk of sexual dysfunction (1.839 [1.580 – 2.140]), while risk of local side effects regarding skin ranked fourth (1.612 [1.321 – 1.966]).The impairment of sleep quality was also significant but less important (1.556 [1.346 – 1.798]). Local side effects were more likely to be accepted than systemic side effects. The risks of sexual dysfunction as a side effect of treatment are very important for patients, although it has received little attention in the literature.
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