Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
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Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. · Jan 1986
ReviewRange of environmental stimuli producing nociceptive suppression: implications for neural mechanisms.
Initial studies of environmentally induced analgesia in the rat established several important characteristics of this phenomenon. We demonstrated that stressful environmental stimuli were not sufficient to produce nociceptive suppression. However, emphasis by many researchers on stress-related analgesia has limited studies of the range of environmental contexts producing nociceptive suppression and handicapped efforts to describe neural mechanisms mediating EIA. ⋯ Considered together, data from these studies indicate that, while stress is not sufficient to produce analgesia, a variety of environmental conditions can modulate nociceptive input. A number of different neural systems could contribute EIA associated with various stimuli. It is possible that the regulation of nociceptive input is not the exclusive, or even principal, consequence of normal activity within certain of these systems.
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Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. · Jan 1986
ReviewAltered pain and visual sensitivity in humans: the effects of acute and chronic stress.
In the runner study, as measured by tourniquet ischemic pain, exercise stress produced hypoalgesia 20 minutes post-run, followed by hyperalgesia and euphoria at 30 minutes. The hypoalgesia and euphoria were reversed by naloxone. Exercise stress also produced a decrease in P(A), suggesting hypoalgesia to the thermal cutaneous stimulation. ⋯ Again, in contrast to the acute experimental pain studies, the emotional stress of mental illness produces hypoalgesia, but not anesthesia. Finally, the somatosensory system is not the only the sensory system affected by stress. Cold-pressor pain decreases visual sensitivity both during and for a few minutes following stimulation, and does not interfere with short-term (supra-digit span) memory.