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Low back pain (LBP) in Western Europe was classified as having the highest disability and overall burden among 291 studied conditions. For an extensive period of time evidence has accumulated related to morphological changes (e.g. atrophy and fat infiltration) of the paraspinal muscles in persons with LBP. Despite this evidence, there is limited knowledge on muscle fiber type composition of these muscles, and their relation to LBP.
Learn More >Chemotherapeutic agents can cause peripheral neuropathy, a deleterious side effect of cancer treatment. Hyperbaric oxygen (HBO2) treatment has shown great potential for decreasing pain in numerous clinical pain conditions and in preclinical studies. This study was designed to test whether HBO2 might also be useful for treating chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy. Male and female Sprague-Dawley rats were injected with 1 mg/kg paclitaxel or vehicle every other day for 7 days to induce allodynia, followed by either one single, or four daily 60-min exposures to HBO2 or room air. Mechanical and cold allodynia as well as locomotor behavior and body weight were assessed intermittently for several weeks. Estrous cycling was also tracked in female rats. Paclitaxel caused pronounced mechanical allodynia in both sexes that was completely reversed by either one or four treatments of HBO2. Females in all treatment groups showed greater cold acetone scores than males, and acetone scores were not reliably reduced by HBO2 treatment. Neither paclitaxel nor HBO2 treatment altered locomotor behavior or estrous cycling. We conclude that HBO2 treatment was highly effective at reducing mechanical allodynia in paclitaxel-treated rats without affecting weight gain, locomotion, or estrous cycling, suggesting that HBO2 may be effective for treating chemotherapy-induced neuropathic pain without producing significant side effects.
Learn More >Pain can interfere with the daily functioning of persons with multiple sclerosis (PwMS). Furthermore, beliefs about pain and activity engagement are reliably associated with persons' experience of chronic pain. This study aimed to explore the extent to which different aspects of PwMS' activity engagement is related to pain-related illness intrusiveness, and whether certain coping and support systems mediate that relationship.
Learn More >The American Registry for Migraine Research (ARMR) is a multicenter, prospective, longitudinal patient registry, biorepository, and neuroimaging repository that collects clinical data, electronic health record (EHR) data, blood samples, and brain imaging data from individuals with migraine or other headache types. In this manuscript, we outline ARMR research methods and report baseline data describing an initial cohort of ARMR participants.
Learn More >Douleur Neuropathique 4 (DN4) is a screening questionnaire to help identify neuropathic pain (NP) in clinical practice and research. We tested the accuracy of the DN4 questionnaire in stratifying possible NP (pNP) and definite NP (dNP) in patients operated for breast cancer.
Learn More >Increased opioid prescription to relieve pain among patients with chronic pain is associated with increased risk for misuse, potentially leading to substance use disorders and overdose death. We aimed to characterize the relative importance and identify the most significant of several potential risk factors for the severity of self-reported prescribed opioid misuse behaviors.
Learn More >Expression of the voltage-gated sodium channel Na1.7 in sensory neurons is required for pain sensation. We examined the role of Na1.7 in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord using an epitope-tagged Na1.7 knock-in mouse. Immuno-electron microscopy showed the presence of Na1.7 in dendrites of superficial dorsal horn neurons, despite the absence of mRNA. Rhizotomy of L5 afferent nerves lowered the levels of Na1.7 in the dorsal horn. Peripheral nervous system-specific Na1.7 null mutant mice showed central deficits, with lamina II dorsal horn tonic firing neurons more than halved and single spiking neurons more than doubled. Na1.7 blocker PF05089771 diminished excitability in dorsal horn neurons but had no effect on Na1.7 null mutant mice. These data demonstrate an unsuspected functional role of primary afferent neuron-generated Na1.7 in dorsal horn neurons and an expression pattern that would not be predicted by transcriptomic analysis.
Learn More >Periodontitis (PD) and chronic migraine (CM) have been recently linked, and inflammatory processes and vascular endothelial changes are hypothesized as potential mediators of this relationship. The aim of this cross-sectional analysis was to investigate the potential association of PD with vascular systemic inflammation and complement activation in patients with CM.
Learn More >Chronic primary pain (CPP) is one of seven diagnostic groups within the proposed classification of chronic pain in ICD-11. Our aims were to apply the proposed ICD-11 criteria in a large cohort of chronic pain patients participating in the Chronic Pain Self-Management Program (CPSMP) and further investigate whether participants with CPP differed from participants with chronic secondary pain (CSP) regarding health, health expenditure, and the effect of participating in the CPSMP.
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