Pain
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Patients with chronic pain often have accompanying cognitive deficiency, which may reduce their quality of life and hamper efficient medical treatment. Alteration of extracellular glycine concentration may affect cognitive function and spinal pain signaling. In the present study, we assessed recognition memory by novel-object recognition and found that mice developing mechanical hypersensitivity after peripheral nerve injury exhibited impaired recognition ability for novelty, which was never observed in mice provided the selective glycine transporter 1 (GlyT1) inhibitor N-[3-(4'-fluorophenyl)-3-(4'-phenylphenoxy)propyl]sarcosine (NFPS) systemically. ⋯ These findings imply that chronic pain has a crucial influence on hippocampal plasticity related to cognitive function, and strongly suggest that increasing the extracellular level of glycine via blockade of GlyT1 is a potential therapeutic approach for chronic pain with memory impairment. Chronic pain crucially influences hippocampal plasticity related to cognitive function. Increasing the extracellular level of glycine via blockade of GlyT1 is a potential therapeutic approach for chronic pain with memory impairment.
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Many different psychosocial treatments for pain have been described in the literature. All of these treatments have at least some evidence supporting their efficacy. ⋯ An overarching model or framework that includes all of the factors hypothesized to play a role in the effects of these treatments would be useful for (1) understanding the similarities and differences between existing and future psychosocial pain treatments, (2) guiding the psychosocial evaluation of patients with chronic pain, and (3) giving clinicians greater flexibility for including psychosocial interventions that have proven efficacy, but that may not be explained by their preferred (but perhaps limited) model. This article proposes an initial version of such a framework, with the hope that it will increase our understanding of the role that psychosocial factors play in the experience of pain and its negative effects on functioning, and informs future research seeking to identify the common and specific factors associated with psychosocial pain treatments.