European journal of pain : EJP
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Sleep deprivation induces hyperalgesia. However, this pro-nociceptive effect is not reflected at the electrophysiological level, since sleep restricted subjects show amplitude reduction of Laser-evoked Potentials (LEP). We aimed to explore the contribution of habituation to this paradoxical LEP amplitude decline. ⋯ TSD induces hyperalgesia and results in attention-dependent enhanced habituation of the P2 component. Increased habituation may--to a substantial degree--explain the TSD-induced LEP-amplitude decline. For this article, a commentary is available at the Wiley Online Library.
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It remains unclear to what extent patients recover from chronic non-specific low back pain (NSLBP). The objective of this study was to determine (1) the course of chronic NSLBP in tertiary care and (2) which factors predicted 5- and 12-month outcomes. ⋯ The results of this study indicate that in chronic NSLBP patients, bio-psychosocial prognostic factors may be important for clinicians when predicting recovery in back pain intensity during a 1-year period.
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Identification of mechanisms for pain/hyperalgesia following spinal cord injury requires long-term evaluation of individual subjects because of the variability in effect over time for humans. ⋯ Histology revealed that hyperalgesia occurred when there was: (1) damage to spinal white matter; or (2) cystic cavitation; or (3) compression and distortion of the spinal cord without an obvious loss of grey or white matter.
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Patients with widespread unilateral chronic pain associated with recurrent herpes simplex virus (HSV) infections show functional and/or structural changes in the insula, anterior cingulate cortex, frontal and prefrontal cortices, as well as the thalamus, suggesting central dysfunction of the pain system in these patients. Central pain has been associated with attenuated laser-evoked cortical responses. We aimed to clarify whether the observed deficient activation of these areas to acute nociceptive stimuli is due to a lesion at a lower level of pain processing pathways. ⋯ The present results show that our patients with chronic hemibody pain do not show signs of spinothalamic tract lesion. This indicates normal processing of sensory aspects of painful stimuli, while higher pain processing areas show altered activation. We conclude that normal laser-evoked magnetic fields (LEF) or laser-evoked potentials (LEP) may not exclude central pain condition.