• Ian Gilron and Nader Ghasemlou.
• aDepartments of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine and Biomedical and Molecular Sciences, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada bF.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
• Curr Opin Support Palliat Care. 2014 Dec 1;8(4):429-36.

Purpose Of ReviewAlthough circadian rhythmicity has long been recognized in various nociceptive pain conditions such as arthritis, diurnal pain patterns in neuropathic conditions have only recently been described. The purpose of this article is to review emerging evidence and discuss future research to further understand this phenomenon.Recent FindingsSecondary analyses of neuropathic pain clinical trials demonstrate that pain intensity fluctuations exhibit a distinct diurnal pattern that contrasts that of nociceptive pain conditions. Ongoing preclinical investigations support the phenomenon of circadian pain fluctuations and provide the opportunity to better describe pain chronobiology and to elucidate underlying mechanisms of circadian pain rhythmicity.SummaryThe observation of clinically relevant diurnal pain variability in neuropathic conditions has important implications for future research and treatment of pain. This is an immature research field, and further investigation is needed to better characterize these patterns in more detail, investigate contributory mechanisms, and to develop therapeutic strategies that exploit this phenomenon.

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