Brain, behavior, and immunity
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Brain Behav. Immun. · Mar 2011
ReviewAbdominal pain in Irritable Bowel Syndrome: a review of putative psychological, neural and neuro-immune mechanisms.
Chronic abdominal pain is a common symptom of great clinical significance in several areas of medicine. In many cases no organic cause can be established resulting in the classification as functional gastrointestinal disorder. Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is the most common of these conditions and is considered an important public health problem because it can be disabling and constitutes a major social and economic burden given the lack of effective treatments. ⋯ At the same time, there is growing evidence linking peripheral and mucosal immune changes and abdominal pain in IBS, supporting disturbed peripheral pain signalling. Findings in post-infectious IBS emphasize the interaction between centrally-mediated psychosocial risk factors and local inflammation in predicting long-term IBS symptoms. Investigating afferent immune-to-brain communication in visceral hyperalgesia as a component of the sickness response constitutes a promising future research goal.