• J Pain · Apr 2015

    The effect of experimental neck pain on pressure pain sensitivity and axioscapular motor control.

    • Steffan W Christensen, Rogerio P Hirata, and Thomas Graven-Nielsen.
    • Laboratory for Musculoskeletal Pain and Motor Control, Center for Sensory-Motor Interaction (SMI), Department of Health Science and Technology, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark.
    • J Pain. 2015 Apr 1;16(4):367-79.

    UnlabelledClinical neck pain affects pain sensitivity and coordination of neck muscles, but the impact on the shoulder muscles is unclear. This study investigated the effect of experimental neck pain on the activity of the axioscapular muscles during arm movements and changes in pain sensitivity. Experimental neck pain was induced in 24 healthy volunteers by injecting hypertonic saline into the splenius capitis. Isotonic saline was injected as control. Before, during, and after injections, electromyography was recorded bilaterally from 8 muscles during standardized arm movements (140° scapular plane elevation), and the root mean square amplitude was extracted. Likewise, pressure pain thresholds were assessed bilaterally on 3 sites. The root mean square electromyography was decreased for the ipsilateral upper trapezius (P < .01) and increased for the ipsilateral middle deltoid (P < .03) during upward movements. The root mean square electromyography was reduced for the ipsilateral upper trapezius (P < .01) during downward movement, whereas an increase was recorded in the contralateral external oblique (P < .02). At the injection site, the pressure pain threshold increased during pain compared with the post condition (5 minutes after potential pain had subsided; P < .03). In this study, trunk and axioscapular muscle activities were reorganized in response to localized and referred pain evoked by hypertonic saline injection into an intrinsic neck muscle with no direct attachments to the trunk or shoulder girdle.PerspectiveReorganized activity of the axioscapular muscles has been shown previously in neck pain patients and is believed to happen during the transition from acute to chronic pain. The present study demonstrates for the first time that such reorganization may happen acutely, adding to our understanding of the effects of acute neck pain.Copyright © 2015 American Pain Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

      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…