Psychosomatic medicine
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Psychosomatic medicine · Nov 2011
Cerebral activation and catastrophizing during pain anticipation in patients with fibromyalgia.
Anticipation of pain influences its cerebral processing and dysfunctional cognitive style like catastrophizing correlates with the severity of pain. Patients with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) exhibit higher levels of catastrophizing, increased attention to pain, and augmented cerebral pain processing. Therefore, alteration in cerebral processing during anticipation of experimental pain and its relation to catastrophizing are the main focus of the study. ⋯ The lack of difference in catastrophizing during the experimental pain suggests independent coping mechanisms during experimental and clinical pain. Regarding the importance of the frontal cortex and the PAG in the descending pain modulation system, it seems reasonable to assume that these functional changes related to the context of stimulus presentation may contribute to central sensitization in FMS.