Characterization of Chronic Ocular Pain Using the Neurologic Pain Signature
Chronic ocular pain is a disabling condition defined by ocular spontaneous pain and allodynia. To determine whether brain network dynamics related to pain are different in patients with chronic pain vs. those without, we analyzed the functional connectivity between the constituent brain regions that comprise the Neurologic Pain Signature (NPS). Subjects were recruited from the Miami Veterans Affairs Medical Center and split into two groups: those with chronic ocular pain (n=60, average ocular pain ≥1/10 over 1 week recall) and those without ocular pain (n=20). (Source: The Journal of Pain)
Source: The Journal of Pain - April 1, 2024 Category: Materials Science Authors: Jacob Sperber, Nicholas Reyes, Anat Galor, Pradip Pattany, Elizabeth Felix, Tor Wager, Scott Holmes, Eric Moulton Source Type: research
Classifying Chronic Low Back Pain: A Sensorimotor and Pain-Processing Gray Matter Predictive Model
Pain is a multifaceted experience incorporating volumetric changes in sensorimotor and pain-processing brain networks. However, divergent findings of region and direction of volume change contribute to the ambiguity surrounding differences in gray matter (GM) volume between individuals with chronic low back pain (cLBP) and healthy controls (HC). This prospective observational study aimed to identify a distinctive pattern of brain regions that could accurately classify cLBP and HC based on the GM volume. (Source: The Journal of Pain)
Source: The Journal of Pain - April 1, 2024 Category: Materials Science Authors: Pradeep K. Sahu, John R. Gilliam, Sheri P. Silfies, Jennifer MC Vendemia Source Type: research
Differential Connectivity Associated with Pain Outcomes by Religious/Spiritual Belief
The biopsychosocial model of pain is a well-accepted framework to understand how all facets of life influence the pain experience, but one crucial sociocultural element is often missing from this approach. Religion/spirituality (R/S) can have a significant impact on an individual's perception of health and illness, but its role in the context of pain has thus far been de-emphasized. Further, the neurobiological processes underlying this relationship have not been explored. The purpose of this study was to examine differences in functional connectivity underlying pain severity and interference in R/S (n = 61) and atheist (n...
Source: The Journal of Pain - April 1, 2024 Category: Materials Science Authors: Rachel L. Cundiff-O ’Sullivan, Yang Wang, Luana Colloca Source Type: research
Effects of Environmental Enrichment on Visceral Sensitivity and Brain Connectivity in a Mouse Model of Chronic Overlapping Pain Conditions
Environmental Enrichment (EE) has been shown to reduce pain- and anxiety-like behaviors, enhance learning and memory, and induce neural plasticity. We have developed a mouse model of comorbid pain hypersensitivity (CPH: stress during preexisting orofacial pain, Complete Freund's Adjuvant (CFA) induced masseter muscle inflammation) and examined the effects of EE on behavioral and brain connectivity changes induced by this model. Eighteen female mice underwent resting-state fMRI scans and were divided into 3 groups: 6 CPH + EE, 6 CPH only, and 6 naive mice. (Source: The Journal of Pain)
Source: The Journal of Pain - April 1, 2024 Category: Materials Science Authors: Michael L. Keaser, Shelby Hanson, Alison Scott, Richard J. Traub, Joyce T. Da Silva Source Type: research
Exploring Neuronal Underpinnings of Emotional Regulation of Pain in Fibromyalgia Patients
Emotion is among the supraspinal processes that modulate pain perception. In fibromyalgia (FM) patients, deficits related to the emotional regulation (ER) of pain have been widely demonstrated. Therefore, it is essential to understand and identify the processes that impact ER of pain in FM patients. In this preliminary study, we investigated the ER in FM patients using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). 11 patients and 7 healthy volunteers (HV) performed an ER task while thermal heat (tailored to each participant ’s 6/10 on a VAS scale) was delivered to their right forearm via ATS thermode (Medoc), in which th...
Source: The Journal of Pain - April 1, 2024 Category: Materials Science Authors: Merve Kaptan, Dario Pfyffer, Christine S.W. Law, Valeria Oliva, Kenneth Arnold Weber, Gary Glover, Sean Mackey Source Type: research
Frequent Vaso-occlusive Crises Alter Brain Network Connectivity in Patients with Sickle Cell Disease
Sickle cell disease (SCD) is an inherited hemolytic disorder complicated by acute vaso-occlusive crises (VOCs) that are associated with extremely painful episodes that frequently require hospitalization and opioids for pain control. We previously reported significant correlations between resting state functional connectivity (fs-rc) and number of hospitalizations associated with VOCs (Darbari, 2015). Eight-minute rs-fc and high-resolution T1w structural scans were collected from 22 patients aged 14-73 yrs old. (Source: The Journal of Pain)
Source: The Journal of Pain - April 1, 2024 Category: Materials Science Authors: Eric Ichesco, Andrew Q. Pucka, Richard E. Harris, Ying Wang Source Type: research
Glutamate in the Cingulate Cortex: Insights into Attentional and Sensitivity Aspects of Pain
Pain is a complex and subjective experience that varies greatly between individuals. Measuring electroencephalogram (EEG) activity while exposing participants to a slightly painful laser stimulus, provides an avenue to quantify peoples ’ differential responses to pain, through detection of reflective increases in neural activity at specific time points after laser stimulus, called laser evoked potentials (LEPs). The purpose of this study was to investigate the underlying neurobiological contribution of the cingulate cortex in in dividual responses to pain, through comparing excitatory glutamate levels between small and l...
Source: The Journal of Pain - April 1, 2024 Category: Materials Science Authors: Cassandra Choles, Jessica Archibald, Oscar Ortiz, Erin L MacMillan, John L.K. Kramer Source Type: research
Grey Matter Adaptations to Chronic Pain in People with Whiplash-Associated Disorders Are Partially Reversed After Treatment: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study
Grey matter (GM) changes are often observed in people with chronic spinal pain, including those with chronic whiplash-associated disorders (CWAD). These GM adaptations may be reversed with treatment, at least partially. Pain neuroscience education combined with exercise (PNE+Exercise) is an effective treatment, but its neural underlying mechanisms remain unexplored in CWAD. Here, we performed both cross-sectional and longitudinal voxel-based morphometry to i) identify potential GM alterations in people with CWAD (n=63) compared to age- and sex-matched pain-free controls (n=32) and ii) determine whether these GM alterations...
Source: The Journal of Pain - April 1, 2024 Category: Materials Science Authors: Carlos Murillo, Marina Lopez-Sola, Barbara Cagnie, Maria Su ñol, Rob Smeets, Iris Coppieters, Elise Cnockaert, Mira Meeus, Inge Timmers Source Type: research
Imaging Corticospinal Correlates of Aberrant Pain Processing and Modulation in Fibromyalgia Using Combined Brain-Spinal Cord Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Chronic widespread pain represents the cardinal symptom of fibromyalgia (FM). While dysfunctions in cerebral pain-modulatory systems were found to contribute, their link to the spinal cord (SC) is missing. This preliminary study aimed to characterize corticospinal mechanisms of aberrant nociceptive processing and physical activity-related descending pain modulation in FM, by means of combined brain-SC functional magnetic resonance imaging. We scanned 10 females (6 FM, aged 22-62; 4 healthy volunteers (HV), aged 33-62) at 3T (GE SIGNA Premier) using an echo-planar imaging pulse sequence (repetition time=2.5s/echo time=30ms/...
Source: The Journal of Pain - April 1, 2024 Category: Materials Science Authors: Dario Pfyffer, Merve Kaptan, Christine SW Law, Kenneth A Weber, Valeria Oliva, Sandrine B édard, Tara Maronesy, Gary H Glover, Sean Mackey Source Type: research
Investigating Neurometabolites and Pain in Fibromyalgia
Fibromyalgia (FM) is a complex, chronic pain disorder characterized by widespread musculoskeletal pain, fatigue, sleep disturbances, and cognitive difficulties. The exact cause of FM remains elusive, with factors like abnormal pain processing and central nervous system sensitization implicated in its pathophysiology. One hypothesis is that the immune system is frequently activated, prompting microglia to initiate a central inflammatory state. The purpose of this study was to use whole-brain magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging (MRSI) to investigate whether abnormal inflammation in the central nervous system may be asso...
Source: The Journal of Pain - April 1, 2024 Category: Materials Science Authors: Indonesia A. Jordan, Sophia Fox, Matthew McDaniel, Jarred Younger Source Type: research
Neural Processing of Emotion in Youth with and Without Recent Pain in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study: Sex-Specific Patterns During Fearful Face Processing
Despite significant overlap in the neural circuitry of pain and emotion, the mechanisms by which emotional processing may influence pain experiences (and vice-versa) are poorly understood. To further our knowledge, we investigated the relationship between past-month pain and emotion-related neural activity in 11 –12-year-old youth within the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. Here, we compared brain activity in emotion-related a priori regions-of-interest (amygdala, insula, rostral and caudal anterior cingulate cortices (ACC) and medial and lateral orbitofrontal cortices (OFC)) between t hose self-repor...
Source: The Journal of Pain - April 1, 2024 Category: Materials Science Authors: Carmen I. Bango, Scott J. Jones, Arturo Lopez Florez, Iris Arnold, Amy L. Holley, Bonnie J. Nagel, Anna C. Wilson Source Type: research
Psychophysical and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Temporal Pain Dynamics Assessment of Task-based Variability
In the search for chronic pain biomarkers, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) provides crucial insights into the neurobiological underpinnings of pain. Characterizing these mechanisms is challenging due to pain's dynamic nature. Analyzing pain-evoked brain responses conventionally assumes alignment with the onset of a noxious stimulus. However, the dynamic and subjective nature of pain challenges this assumption's accuracy. We hypothesized that incorporating the temporal delay between a noxious stimulus and the onset of perceptible pain improves the precision of fMRI responses. (Source: The Journal of Pain)
Source: The Journal of Pain - April 1, 2024 Category: Materials Science Authors: Sofia Heras, Zeynab Alshelh, Maya Iberkleid, Daniel E. Harper Source Type: research
Resting State Connectivity Networks Underpinning Multisite Pain in Adolescent Girls and Boys
Multisite pain disproportionately affects women and is associated with central nervous system dysregulation (i.e., nociplastic pain). As sex differences emerge during adolescence, there may be an intersection between neurodevelopmental sex differences and the neurobiology of nociplastic pain, but this has not been examined. The present study investigates sex differences in the neural networks underlying multisite pain using resting state fMRI data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study (n=1,254, ages 11-12). (Source: The Journal of Pain)
Source: The Journal of Pain - April 1, 2024 Category: Materials Science Authors: Esmeralda Hidalgo-Lopez, Tristin Smith, Hannah Becker, Mike Angstadt, Andrew Schrepf, David A. Williams, Daniel Clauw, Steven E. Harte, Chelsea Kaplan, Adriene Beltz Source Type: research
Riding The Waves of Pain: The Neural Correlates and Impact of Day-to-Day Pain Fluctuations on Clinical Outcomes after Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Pain is a subjective, multifaceted experience that varies substantially between and within chronic pain patients and is characterized by somatosensory, affective, and cognitive components. However, whether high day-to-day fluctuation amplitude ( “hope for change”) or low amplitude/consistent pain experience (“know what to expect”) contributes to better or worse therapeutic outcomes is an ongoing debate. In this longitudinal MRI study involving an 8-week cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) intervention in Fibromyalgia patients (N=61, all female, age (SD) = 41.27 (12.54) years), the impact of baseline daily reported p...
Source: The Journal of Pain - April 1, 2024 Category: Materials Science Authors: Arvina Grahl, Maya Barton-Zuckerman, Jeungchan Lee, Asimina Lazaridou, Myrella Paschali, Michael P. Berry, Laura Isaro, Kylie Isenburg, Alessandra Anzolin, Robert R. Edwards, Vitaly Napadow Source Type: research
Subjective and Objective Pain Assessment in Persons with Alzheimer ’s Disease and Related Dementias: Comparisons Among Self-Report of Pain, Observer-Rated Pain Assessment, and Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy
Pain assessment in older adults with Alzheimer ’s disease and related dementias (ADRD) is challenging due to memory and judgment impairment and limited ability to report pain verbally. There is growing interest in neuroimaging technology to measure pain at the neural level, such as functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), for monitoring cerebral hemodynamic changes. The purpose of this study was to determine whether fNIRS is a reliable objective pain measure for older adults with early-stage ADRD. (Source: The Journal of Pain)
Source: The Journal of Pain - April 1, 2024 Category: Materials Science Authors: Juyoung Park, Samuel Montero-Hernandez, Allison J. Huff, Lindsey Park, Lifeng Lin, Hyochol Ahn Source Type: research
