Brain : a journal of neurology
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Case Reports Comparative Study
Chronic hyperalgesia and skin warming caused by sensitized C nociceptors.
A patient suffering from an acquired painful syndrome, due to injury to primary somatic afferent units, was studied. Clinical features included chronic spontaneous burning pain in one hand, abnormal painful response to nonnoxious cutaneous stimuli, and deviation of temperature and dystrophic changes in symptomatic skin. Diagnostic stellate ganglion blocks did not improve spontaneous or stimulus-induced pains, and observation of sympathetic efferent neural activity and vasomotor effector responses revealed no abnormality, failing to support an autonomic contribution to the pathogenesis of the pains. ⋯ Sensitization of C polymodal nociceptors is consistent with the features of hyperalgesia in this patient: pain evoked by nonnoxious stimuli, exaggerated pain magnitude, and abnormally prolonged aftersensation of pain. This is the first documentation of chronic sensitization of human C polymodal nociceptors as a symptom of disease. In the context of sensitized C nociceptors and in the absence of sympathetic vasoconstrictor deficit, the abnormally elevated temperature in symptomatic skin is interpreted as due to antidromic vasodilatation triggered by neurosecretion from hyperactive nociceptors.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)