• Gut · Nov 2011

    Review

    The balancing act: endogenous modulation of pain in functional gastrointestinal disorders.

    • Clive H Wilder-Smith.
    • Gastroenterology Group Practice, CH-3011 Bern, Switzerland. cws@braingut.com
    • Gut. 2011 Nov 1; 60 (11): 1589-99.

    AbstractFunctional gastrointestinal disorders (FGIDs) are characterised by visceral pain or discomfort with an unknown cause. There is increasing evidence for abnormal processing of sensory input in FGIDs. Modulation of sensory input occurs at all levels of the nervous system, with a dynamic balance between facilitation and inhibition and close integration with the body's wider homoeostatic control. Cognitive, emotional, autonomic and spinal reflex pathways effectively orchestrate supraspinal and spinal pain modulation, as demonstrated in neurophysiological and brain imaging studies. Endogenous pain modulation has been studied in visceral pain conditions and abnormal regulation has been shown in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and functional dyspepsia, as well as other chronic pain syndromes. A majority of patients with IBS have diminished pain inhibition or even pain facilitation compared with healthy controls. Brain imaging during specific activation of endogenous pain modulation demonstrates a fairly consistent functional hub of mainly frontal, limbic and brainstem modulatory regions in healthy humans. Patients with IBS have a different pattern of activation and a correlation between the imaging and sensory changes. Because the modulatory balance of inhibition and facilitation appears to be distributed within the same functional network, future imaging studies of modulation mechanisms should include conditions allowing quantification of inhibitory and facilitatory components. An altered modulatory balance may well be a unifying pathophysiological mechanism in FGID as it can be driven by both top-down (ie, CNS pathology) and bottom-up (ie, peripheral immune activation) influences, but further validation in diverse FGID groups over time is required. Therapeutic manipulation of the modulatory system is possible by both pharmacological and non-pharmacological means.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…