European journal of pain : EJP
-
Long-term avoidance of painful activities has shown to be dysfunctional in chronic pain. Pain may elicit escape or avoidance responses automatically, particularly when pain-related fear is high. A conflict may arise between opposing short-term escape/avoidance goals to reduce pain and long-term approach goals to receive a reward. An inhibitory control system may resolve this conflict. It was hypothesized that reduced response inhibition would be associated with greater escape/avoidance during pain, particularly among subjects with higher pain-related fear. ⋯ The findings suggest that individuals with a stronger ability to inhibit responses in a stop-signal task are better able to inhibit escape/avoidance responses elicited by pain, in the service of a conflicting approach goal.
-
Being able to estimate effort pain in patients is important for health care providers working in physical rehabilitation services. Previous studies have shown that clinicians and physiotherapists underestimate patients' pain. ⋯ These results bring further insights into understanding physiotherapists' perception of patients' pain. In order to improve their ability to adapt the difficulty of the rehabilitation sessions, they should learn to raise their global level of pain magnitude estimation (for example, by performing themselves the body movement) instead of overweighting facial pain expression signals.
-
Low back pain (LBP) is a prevalent problem and tends to be socio-economically patterned. Relatively little is known about life-course socio-economic circumstances as determinants of different types of LBP. Our aim was to examine whether childhood and adult socio-economic position and social mobility are associated with radiating and non-specific LBP and sciatica. ⋯ Childhood socio-economic circumstances affect the risk of radiating LBP and sciatica in adulthood. To prevent low back disorders, early socio-economic circumstances need to be considered alongside own socio-economic position.
-
Autonomic neuropathy, a relatively common complication of several chemotherapy agents, can affect the vagus nerve and its pain inhibitory capacity, thus increasing sensitivity to pain. This study aimed to evaluate the relationships between autonomic parasympathetic function and the perception of (1) spontaneous pain; (2) experimental non-painful sensations; and (3) experimental painful sensations in chemotherapy-induced neuropathy patients. ⋯ Diminished vagal function due to neuropathy is associated with, and may possibly underlie, pain disinhibition expressed as greater levels of experimental pain.
-
Among the current translational inflammatory pain models, the ultraviolet (UV) irradiation is of rapidly growing interest. The development of primary thermal and mechanical hyperalgesia has been observed in humans and rodents. The pig as a translational animal model might be advantageous due to its great homology with humans. ⋯ Our study shows that behavioural recordings are a valid tool for the assessment of thermal hyperalgesia following UV-B inflammation in porcine skin, but they were not capable of providing a clear indication of the development of mechanical hyperalgesia.