The Clinical journal of pain
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
Different activation of opercular and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) in patients with complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS I) compared with healthy controls during perception of electrically induced pain: a functional MRI study.
Although the etiology of complex regional pain syndrome type 1 (CRPS 1) is still debated, many arguments favor central maladaptive changes in pain processing as an important causative factor. ⋯ Stronger PCC activation during painful stimulation may be interpreted as a correlate of motor inhibition during painful stimuli different from controls. Also, the decreased opercular activation in CRPS patients shows less sensory-discriminative processing of painful stimuli.These results show that changed cerebral pain processing in CRPS patients is less sensory-discriminative but more motor inhibition during painful stimuli. These changes are not limited to the diseased side but show generalized alterations of cerebral pain processing in chronic pain patients.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Acute pressure block of the sciatic nerve relieves clinical pain but not cold pressor pain.
Acute pressure applied to the sciatic nerve has been recently reported to offer immediate short-term pain relief in patients with various diseases. This study examined the analgesic effect of this novel method on cold pressor pain compared with clinical pain. ⋯ Our study indicated that cold pressor pain and clinical pain responded differently to acute pressure blockade of the sciatic nerve. Our findings indicate that caution should be exercised when attempting to extrapolate cold pressor pain findings to clinical pain.