Pain
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Comparative Study
Ethnic differences in physical pain sensitivity: role of acculturation.
Although research suggests that Asian Americans are more reactive to physical pain than European Americans, some evidence suggests that the observed differences in ethnicity may actually reflect Asian Americans' differing levels of acculturation. Two studies were conducted to test this hypothesis. ⋯ Study 2 further controlled for ethnicity and replicated this pattern in finding heightened pain reactions among mainland Chinese students in Hong Kong relative to Hong Kong Chinese students. These findings suggest a role for acculturation in accounting for ethnic differences in physical pain sensitivity.
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Environmentally caused changes in chromosomes that do not alter the DNA sequence but cause phenotypic changes by altering gene transcription are summarized as epigenetics. A major epigenetic mechanism is methylation or demethylation at CpG-rich DNA islands. DNA methylation triggered by drugs has largely unexplored therapeutic consequences. ⋯ This has phenotypic consequences for pain and may provide a new, epigenetics-associated mechanism of opioid-induced hyperalgesia. The results indicate a potential influence of opioid analgesics on the patients' epigenome. They emphasize the need for reliable and cost-effective screening tools and may imply that high-throughput screening for lead compounds in artificial expression systems may not provide the best tools for identifying new pain medications.