Pflügers Archiv : European journal of physiology
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Transient cold pain has no effect on cutaneous vasodilatation induced by capsaicin: a randomized-control-crossover study in healthy subjects.
Cooling the skin induces sympathetically driven vasoconstriction, along with some vasoparalytic dilatation at lowermost temperatures. Neurogenic inflammation, on the other hand, entails vasodilatation. In the present study, we examined the dynamic vasomotor balance of capsaicin-induced vasodilatation within the area of the induced neurogenic inflammation, with and without superimposed cooling. ⋯ Two-way repeated-measures ANOVA indicated no interaction between the experimental conditions (capsaicin with or without cold) and time (F=0.934, p=0.454). The cold pain stimulation was found to be insignificant in its influence on BF evoked by capsaicin (F=0.018, p=0.894). The results of our study indicate that (1) transient cooling causes significant vasodilatation, (2) intradermal injection of capsaicin is dominant in inducing vasodilatation, and (3) the cold-pain-evoked vasodilatation has no modulative effect on the capsaicin-evoked cutaneous vasodilatation.