• Jamie L Rhudy, Christopher R France, Emily J Bartley, Amy E Williams, Klanci M McCabe, and Jennifer L Russell.
• Department of Psychology, The University of Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma 74104, USA. jamie-rhudy@utulsa.edu
• J Pain. 2009 Aug 1;10(8):860-9.

UnlabelledExisting evidence indicates that pain catastrophizing is associated with enhanced pain reports and lower pain threshold/tolerance levels, but is not significantly related to nociceptive flexion reflex (NFR) threshold in healthy and clinical pain samples. This suggests pain catastrophizing may modulate pain threshold at a supraspinal level without influencing descending modulation of spinal nociceptive inputs. To examine this issue further, the present study assessed NFR threshold, electrocutaneous pain threshold, and electrocutaneous pain tolerance, as well as subjective ratings of noxious stimuli in a sample of 105 healthy adults. Pain catastrophizing was assessed prior to testing using traditional instructions and after pain testing with instructions to report on cognitions during testing (situation-specific catastrophizing). As expected, NFR threshold was correlated with pain sensitivity measures, but uncorrelated with both measures of catastrophizing. Although situation-specific catastrophizing was correlated with some pain outcomes, neither catastrophizing measure (traditional or situation specific) moderated the relationship between NFR and pain sensitivity. These findings confirm and extend existing evidence that catastrophizing influences pain reports through supraspinal mechanisms (eg, memory, report bias, attention) without altering transmission of spinal nociceptive signals.PerspectiveAssessing catastrophic thoughts related to a specific painful event (situation-specific catastrophizing) provides important additional information regarding the negative cognitions that influence pain-related processes. However, neither situation-specific nor traditionally measured pain catastrophizing appear to enhance pain by engaging descending controls to influence spinal nociceptive processes.

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