Papers of the Week

Our knowledge of central sensitization (CS) in chronic low back pain (CLBP) is limited. 2011 fibromyalgia criteria and severity scales (2011 FM survey) has been used to determine FM positive as a surrogate of CS. The major features of CS including widespread hyperalgesia and dysfunction of the descending inhibitory pathways can be identified by pressure pain threshold (PPT) and conditioned pain modulation (CPM) tests. The purpose of the study was to examine neurophysiological characteristics and psychosocial symptoms in a subgroup of FM positive CLBP compared to FM negative CLBP patients.